V&A to launch new research institute

The V&A museum will launch a new research institute to make its collections and expertise more ‘joined up’ and ‘outward facing’ after receiving £1.75m from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

It will use the investment over the next five years to host collaborative research and residency projects, expand its training and teaching programmes, produce new publications, and refresh the V&A Online Journal.

Initial research projects include conserving and digitally reproducing the 18th-century Leman Album, the earliest surviving set of European silk designs, and enabling ‘crowd-sourced transcriptions’ of Charles Dickens’ manuscripts by making them accessible online.

Widespread re-design

The development of the V&A Research Institute (VARI) comes as the museum continues its plan to refresh its public spaces and launch a new site in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. VARI will support a programme of residencies to build bridges between South Kensington and East London.

Martin Roth, Director of the V&A said: “The V&A was the first museum in the world to establish a dedicated department for research, more than thirty years ago. With the establishment of V&A East in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, and the development of new storage and study facilities being planned, this is an incredible opportunity to help reinvent the collections for the digital, democratic age.”

Bill Sherman, Director of Research and Collections at the V&A said: “VARI will give new life to the museum’s original mission of using exemplary collections to advance knowledge of the designed world.

“It will make the objects we house and the expertise we host more accessible to the broadest possible audience.”