Penn Cultural Heritage Center launches National Study on Collecting Practices

this first-of-its-kind research will enhance transparency in how museums currently make decisions about collections and identify models for their future collecting practices.

“Now more than ever, U.S. museums are being held accountable by their communities to maintain high ethical standards in their acquisition, stewardship, and deaccessioning of cultural objects. However, the field lacks the foundational information needed to guide institutional decision-making around key issues, such as what constitutes an ethical acquisition, whether continuing to collect is necessary, and what to do when an institution’s legal or ethical title to its collections comes under question,” explains Dr. Brian I. Daniels, the PennCHC’s Director of Research and Programs and the M2A Project’s principal investigator. “The M2A Project seeks to address these challenges by identifying the ways museums are acquiring objects today and how collecting fits within the broader social purpose of museums—now and in the future. This kind of information has never before been brought together on this scale and made available to museum leadership and policymakers.”

Through its extensive research during the M2A Project, the PennCHC will develop an informed dialogue that will reimagine the future role of museums in our society. Researchers will examine more than 450 American museums that have historically held cultural objects—such as art, archaeological, and ethnographic collections—and engage with practitioners and thought-leaders to better understand the lifecycle of collections from acquisition to deaccession or repatriation, as well as the ties between museums’ missions and their collecting practices.

By 2027, the PennCHC will share the M2A Project’s findings through a state-of-the-field report that synthesizes current collecting practices and spotlights innovative case studies across the U.S. museum sector. The report is intended to help museum staff at all levels, cultural leaders, trustees, grantmakers, and policymakers champion higher collecting standards and strengthen museum services for the American public.

The M2A Project comes at a critical moment as museums across the country grapple with the ownership histories of their collections and as the illegal trafficking of objects places global cultural heritage at increasing risk. This research builds upon the PennCHC’s history of addressing these challenges through collaborations with local communities and U.S. government agencies.

Since its founding in 2008, the PennCHC has worked closely with local communities around the world, such as in Afghanistan, Mexico, and Ukraine, to preserve cultural heritage while critically examining how museums collect and steward that heritage. “We founded the PennCHC, in part, to address questions about how museums represent the identities of communities whose defining objects and cultural heritage have been stolen,” explains Dr. Richard M. Leventhal, the PennCHC’s Executive Director and the M2A Project’s co-principal investigator. “With the M2A Project, we will finally be able to connect the dots and understand why and how the cultural property imported into the United States is acquired by museums.”

The M2A Project grows out of the PennCHC’s Cultural Property Experts On Call (CPEOC) Program, a partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Cultural Heritage Coordinating Committee aimed at protecting and preserving international cultural property from looting, theft, and trafficking. Since 2020, the PennCHC has worked with subject matter experts from more than 100 museums and universities to identify the origins of cultural property in federal investigations and document the scope of the illicit artifacts trade. The M2A Project leverages the team’s experience in developing large datasets and marshaling the expertise of museums to address critical concerns around collecting cultural heritage.

“We are very pleased that the Penn Cultural Heritage Center is implementing such an important project and that its expertise has been recognized with a National Leadership Grant. This complements the Penn Museum’s proactive approach to collections practices and its leadership in our field,” adds Dr. Christopher Woods, the Williams Director at the Penn Museum and Avalon Professor for the Humanities in the Penn School of Arts and Sciences. “The M2A Project will provide a source of much-needed information that will help museums around the world address the cultural heritage in their care in a more ethical manner.”