Collections Teaching and Research Centre (CTRC)
Safeguarding the Future and Inspiring Innovation with a world-class Collections Teaching and Research Centre
The 8.5 million objects that sit within the Ashmolean Museum, the History of Science Museum, the Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum contain some of the most inspiring, varied and important collections of archaeology, science, art, and natural history in the world. Integral to the University’s mission, the collections are a repository of information and inspiration for students, local and global visitors, and present and future scientists, artists, makers, and researchers.
The new Collections Teaching and Research Centre (CTRC) will bring together substantial areas of these internationally important collections within the new Reuben College building located in the heart of the University, in the same building as the Radcliffe Science Library (RSL), and adjacent to the Museum of Natural History and Pitt Rivers Museum.
The location of the CTRC in the lower levels of Reuben College opens exciting potential for students and researchers to access the specialist expertise of curators and conservators, and opens potential new opportunities for curriculum enhancements, resources for student research projects, and developing practical skills that will help students both in their studies and in their future careers. The shared home with the Radcliffe Science Library brings together one of the Bodleian Libraries with the University’s museums, enhancing potential for collaboration among the University’s libraries and museums for object-led research, teaching and public engagement.
The CTRC is a unique space that will store and ensure the conservation of the majority of University Museums collections and provide exceptional facilities for teaching, research and digitisation. And it will also offer previously unavailable access to objects, creating a sector-leading base for research into innovative object-based teaching, inclusive collaboration and public engagement.
The CTRC is currently under development and planned to open in Spring 2023.

World-class Accommodation and Storage Facilities
Covering two basement levels the CTRC will comprise of a large storage space split across two floors, flexible research and teaching rooms, a conservation studio, digitisation studio, processing room and walk-in freezer. The CTRC will provide high-level storage for all University museum objects, with modern, environmentally-controlled systems in which to preserve objects. Bespoke storage solutions for each unique collection will ensure optimal conditions for object care and access.

State-of-the-art Textiles Centre
Housing more than 8,000 textiles from the Pitt Rivers Museum and 4,500 from the Ashmolean Museum, the new Textiles Centre will create one of the world’s most important textile collections, with early Maori Cloaks, arctic intestine garments, Pharoanic linen weaving from c.2800 BC, over 1,000 early Islamic embroideries, and seventeenth-century English embroideries. New accessible storage in the Centre will allow for stabilising, researching, conserving and examining these incredible collections.

New Teaching Opportunities
The Centre will support object-based teaching with the University’s collections, transforming teaching opportunities across University departments and facilitating transformative learning experiences for students, academics, specialist groups and the general public. Object-based teaching offers more inclusive learning methods and enhances critical thinking, allowing users to ask new questions by learning through objects.

Research opportunities / Undiscovered Research Avenues
The Centre will be an incredible resource for research and discovery. Offering unprecedented access to a vast variety of collections all in one space, the CTRC will attract researchers across a variety of disciplines from within Oxford University and around the world, making it both a physical and virtual hub for interdisciplinary research.

Global Access: Photography and Digitisation
The new Centre will contain facilities for photography and digitisation of objects, which will enhance the digitisation of collections, ensuring that they are accessible for a worldwide community. We know that audiences from across the world access our collections online; improved access, records, and photography will create new opportunities for learning and collaboration.

High-Level Conservation Studio and Collections Care
A modern conservation studio, with the most advanced equipment and technologies, will provide a space for the vital work of Museum conservators to undertake remedial conservation for the care of our collections in a safe environment. The Conservation Studio will allow all Museums to share knowledge, best practice, collaborate, and host interns or visiting conservators.
Oxford University students and staff will be able to access the space for learning and teaching. Researchers from Oxford and around the world will be able to access and study the collections. Facilitated school groups will be hosted for learning with objects. The Museums Education and Outreach teams will use the CTRC in its work with families, young people, vulnerable communities and schools. Local communities and indigenous peoples will be able to access collections of interest. And of course museums staff will have immediate access to the collections for study, learning, display and interpretation and other use.
The CTRC will be an incredible resource housing 80% of the collections from the Pitt Rivers and History of Science museums, as well as the complete library and archives from the History of Science Museum, textile collections from the Ashmolean Museum, and the Museum of Natural History’s mammal skeleton and British Insect collections.
Visitors to the CTRC will be able to discover ceramics, firearms, weaponry, and religious and ceremonial objects and amulets from over 80,000 objects in the Pitt Rivers Collections. They’ll find large copper butterflies and the blue stag beetle from the 1.1million specimens in the Museum of Natural History’s globally significant insect collections. Over 12,000 textiles will be held in the new Textile Centre including Maori Cloaks, arctic intestine garments, Pharoanic linens from c.2800 BC, or early Islamic embroideries. And with the majority of the History of Science Museum’s collections on site researchers can find the world’s finest collection of early scientific instruments from modern Europe and the Islamic World, covering areas as diverse as astronomy and time-keeping, physics, chemistry, microscopes, mathematics, medicine and telecommunications, along with over 20,000 printed books, pamphlets, photographs and periodicals including the museum’s oldest book, an astronomical calendar called the Kalendarium of Regiomontanus, form its library.
The collections are the cornerstones of the museums. They are currently stored across three off-site locations, consisting of nineteenth-century buildings which were not designed with modern research and teaching in mind. The CTRC will enable the museums to bring particularly significant collections back to the centre of Oxford. The new on-site facilities at the CTRC will provide improved access to collections and modern, environmentally-controlled systems and facilities in which to preserve objects. These will allow new object-based teaching, research and partnership opportunities across the University and beyond.
The CTRC will provide numerous benefits:
- A significant legacy for the future of the heritage sector and beyond, through critical conservation and care of University collections, enabling learning, inspiration and new discoveries
- Improved knowledge of, and access to, a unique combination of internationally important collections, enabling their full potential to be available for the first time both on site and worldwide through digital records
- New collaborations, storytelling and dialogue with communities traditionally underrepresented within museums and future generations of scientists, ecologists, and designers
- Equipping early career researchers with the practice of teaching diverse, innovative object-led courses, leading to excellent academic experiences and wider inclusivity
- Increased research opportunities for experts, students, researchers and special interest groups in matters of global importance.
IN DEVELOPMENT
PLANNED OPENING SPRING 2023

Architect's Drawing of the CTRC
Timeline
April - Dec 2020 | RIBA Stage 5 maintenance works |
Sept 2020 - Sept 2021 | RIBA Stage 5 main construction works |
Sept 2021 | Practical completion |
Oct 2021 | RIBA Stage 6 handover. Reuben College will be open for admissions and the CTRC will be ready for visitors |
Supporters
The Clothworkers' Company
Swire Charitable Trust
We could not accomplish our goals without the support and involvement of our supporters.
For further information, please contact:
Suzi Attree, Senior Development Executive,
Pitt Rivers Museum
E: suzanne.attree@devoff.ox.ac.uk
T:+44 (0)7464 495026