Research strategy 2024–2034

The collection is first and foremost a public resource, a library of objects, open to all to explore and research for themselves. Over the next ten years, the Museum will contribute to wider knowledge by developing new ways to preserve, understand and share knowledge about the collection as a global resource.

Research will generate the knowledge and ideas needed to deliver new galleries and displays in a coherent, over-arching framework rather than as isolated spaces. A new approach to conceiving and structuring research projects is required, working across departments and underpinned by local, national and global research partnerships.

The research programme will be the crucible in which ideas essential to the exhibitions and public programme will be formed and tested. Public engagement will continue to be central to the Museum's approach, creating new knowledge and engaging audiences with the latest research.

To strengthen the focus of the research programme on the collection as evidence for the history of humanity, three core areas of investigation have been identified:

• Exploring how the variety and inter-connectedness of the British Museum collection testifies to the myriad ways in which humans have used material culture to express identity and diversity, offering an essential corrective to simplistic binary discourses that polarise opinion and reduce communities to singular characteristics. New research into the collection will explore concepts of dominance and resistance, community and individuality, solidarity and enmity, examining the varied ways that humans have interacted in the last two million years and the importance of that diversity to a shared future.

• Nature and culture cannot be understood apart from one another. Human societies have been profoundly shaped by and have in turn shaped the natural world. In an era of climate crisis and unprecedented impact on the environment, can the collection provide evidence and narratives for the long history of humanity's changing relationship with and shaping of nature, from the first early human settlements to the rise of modern global empires?

• Research will explore the British Museum as an artefact of entanglement, inextricably bounded within the history of the last 300 years, that can tell us as much about the contexts in which it was formed as the cultures it represents. That complex acquisition history of different objects has led to calls for restitution and a discussion around ownership of parts of its collection. The exploration of the Museum's foundation in 1753, enshrining Enlightenment ideals, and its subsequent growth through its links to British trade and empire, offers a unique perspective on global history, how objects entered the collection and their history in the Museum. The intricate interweaving of power and control, exploitation and development, exploration and research are vital components in this history.

In the next 10 years innovative research is required to both preserve the collection and make it available to as many different audiences as possible: 

• Providing global access to the collection is both a challenge and an opportunity. Research projects will engage with the ethical, technical and organisational challenges of sustainably preserving and sharing the collection to support new galleries, collections storage, exhibitions and loans programmes. 

• Collaborative and consultative ways of working will propel research, forging positive engagement with communities and partners in the masterplan by considering the needs and interests of audiences and stakeholders who identify with particular objects and areas of the collection. 

• Sharing the Museum's research with its communities and audiences requires new approaches to interpreting and displaying the collection within galleries and exhibitions that builds on existing expertise and explores opportunities for engaging the public using new technologies and approaches.

• Building on long-term investment in the digital collection catalogue, research will inform the development of digital collections and research tools. Research will explore new ways to search and explore connections between objects across this and other collections, not just for the benefit of subject and technical specialists but for anyone who wishes to use it.

The Museum will build on its extensive network of partners and long history of collaborative research with professionals, experts and communities, providing the skills, knowledge and perspectives needed to research the collection within a global context.

• University partnerships will enhance expertise applied to the study of the collection, expanding the potential for cross-disciplinary collaboration and sharing of technology and resources, including STEM disciplines.

• Community partnerships across the country and around the world underpin the Museum's stewardship and research approach. Collaborative models from consultation to co-curation and citizen science will facilitate a shared understanding of collection objects and the people who made and used them.

•  Museum partnerships will explore connections between collections and sources of understanding using knowledge exchange and co-investigation, to advance the collective ability to preserve, interpret and display objects.

To deliver the above, we will work with funders and other research agencies to develop the research base and ensure the Museum can shape the agenda for future research across the museum sector in the UK beyond.

Over the next decade, researchers from a more diverse range of backgrounds equipped with the right skills and experiences will be needed. Support and development for current staff and investment in the next generation of researchers will be key to the long-term success of the Museum. 

• A pipeline of funded doctoral and post-doctoral research positions in the arts and humanities and sciences are essential. Professional development for Early Career Researchers (ECRs) will be an important measure of success. 

• To deliver the research programme, new investment in skills training and career development opportunities for research active staff and professional support roles is crucial.

• Collaborative training, national and international partnerships and knowledge exchange programmes will generate the intellectual, technical, analytical and leadership skills needed to fulfil the ambitions of the Museum. 

The reach and impact of the research programme will only be realised by making new knowledge, information and insights widely available to scholarly and general audiences through publication, new digital platforms and public programmes.

The masterplan will deliver essential physical infrastructure required to ensure the Museum can sustain its own ambitious programme-driven, collaborative and cross-disciplinary approach to research, preserve the collection and archive, and adapt facilities to the changing needs of the international research community in the future:

• The outstanding achievements of the Scientific Research and Collection Care departments are strengthening the Museum's role as a centre of excellence for conservation and heritage science. New engagement with STEM research councils and large-scale heritage science research funders will cement the Museum's place in a national network of heritage and research organisations that will transform understanding and preservation of the collection. 

• The first of the Museum's new facilities, the British Museum Archaeological Research Collection (BM_ARC), will open in 2024 dedicated to deep history and ancient world collections. A partnership with the University of Reading will reinvigorate research into the collections stored there. 

• The masterplan at Bloomsbury will deliver a major physical and intellectual redistribution of large parts of the collection across new storage facilities and spaces for libraries, archives and research. Research will underpin accompanying collection move programmes and will inspire a range of study spaces fostering a culture of interdisciplinary collaboration. 

• Investment in digitising the collection and archive, and in innovative imaging technologies, digital research tools, and data repositories will offer different opportunities to understand, analyse and compare objects.