Collections Teaching and Research Centre (CTRC)

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.