Shull: Northwestern University/Art Institute of Chicago Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts

Northwestern University, in conjunction with the Art Institute, now proposes to expand this two-way collaborative model through the creation and leadership of a Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts. The envisioned Center would be the first of its type to make its resources open to both internal and external users via merit-reviewed proposals. The goals of the Center would be threefold: • to conduct object-based and object-inspired research devoted to problems of interest to museums/cultural institutions through museum-university collaborations; • to extend research opportunities to museums/cultural institutions nationally and internationally beyond the Art Institute of Chicago; and • to foster awareness and exchange between scientists and engineers in the academic community and among conservators, curators and conservation scientists in cultural institutions. This would be the first initiative of its kind in the U.S., where scientific research on cultural heritage objects is more typically conducted within the boundaries of a specific museum or cultural institution. We anticipate that the proposed Center, by extending its reach beyond Northwestern University and the Art Institute of Chicago, would become a new model of collaborative scientific research in the arts, providing expanded access to scientific expertise in a centralized and highly specialized facility devoted to the pursuit of art-historical and conservation questions of great value to conservation science and academic communities.