Tate Research

Research underpins much of what we do at Tate, from staging exhibitions to acquiring artworks for the collection and finding out how best to care for them, as well as supporting our visitors to engage and learn. It involves a range of subject disciplines, including art history, history, conservation and conservation science, collection management, education and museology, as well as a variety of research methods and outputs. Undertaken across the organisation, research helps us address practical problems and allows us to contribute to broader debates.

This 2022 revised Research Strategy is informed by Tate’s overarching mission, purpose and vision1 and the three current institutional priorities:

Achieving change in who engages with Tate
Achieving change in who works for Tate and how they are looked after when they do so
Using the collection more to meet the needs of our public and business model2

Tate Library zine collection launch, Tate Britain, 2 August 2019
Photo: Sam Day

Vision for Research at Tate

To create a vibrant research culture across Tate that generates high quality3 ethical and sustainable research about art, ideas and practices of institutional, national and international significance, shared openly and accessibly.

Aims

To enrich Tate, developing new knowledge and partnerships, whilst enhancing the quality and originality of our ideas and the thoughtfulness and effectiveness of our practice, always mindful of the capacity of staff and collaborators
To contribute to scholarly and practice communities, supporting and providing leadership across the sector and generating new insights that build and embed equitable, transparent, anti-racist research practices at Tate and more widely
To enhance people’s knowledge and experience, developing and exchanging knowledge equitably and ethically in ways that engage people within and beyond the academic sector and Tate’s existing core audiences

Objectives

To deepen and widen knowledge and understanding of Tate’s collection and its history, increasing access to information, and supporting informed criticality towards its interpretation
To support and facilitate research by curators and other Tate staff that contributes to and extends from a diverse and innovative public programme, including displays, exhibitions, events and publications
To collaborate with colleagues across Tate to nurture and showcase the range of research activity taking place across the organisation, embedding ethical, care-full scholarly and practice-based research
To work in collaboration with colleagues at Tate and externally to support major externally funded research initiatives – notably the British Art Network and Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational
To work with academic and non-academic collaborators, generating insights and knowledge to inform relevant disciplinary fields and provide solutions to challenges encountered in Tate’s practice and more widely
To raise the profile of research internally and externally, communicating its value and relevance

Participants on the Tate Intensive course gather round workshop leader and artist Harold Offeh — Contested Spaces workshop led by artist Harold Offeh as part of Tate Intensive, July 2018

Priority themes

Recognising Tate’s institutional priorities, the following interconnected, inter-departmental and cross-disciplinary themes provide a framework through which research activity across Tate can operate. Research on and around the collection underpins each theme, while digital is a feature of all four. Research across Tate will not be confined to these themes, however particular attention and resources will be devoted to furthering enquiry and activity in these areas.

Curating4 and the collection in relation to the global, national and local

- Interrogating the transnational

- Resituating British art; its history, generation, acquisition, cataloguing and display

Innovations in collection management, development, conservation and access

Addressing the evolving needs of Tate’s diverse collection alongside developments in library and archival practice

Progressing museum practices and histories

- Contemporary concerns including decoloniality,5 representation, diversity and identity politics; their impact on art museum collections, practices, structures and audiences

- Ecology, sustainability and the climate emergency

Creative learning and new models of public and participatory practice

Interrogating and evidencing the nature and value of learning and engagement with and through art/Tate’s collection and innovations in museum participation

Attendees at the Lives of Net Art workshop day use their phones to interact with one of the exhibits — Lives of Net Art workshop day, part of Reshaping the Collectible: When Artworks Live in the Museum, Tate Modern, 4 April 2019
Photo: Hydar Dewachi

Russell Rickford speaks in front of an audience in the Clore Auditorium at Tate Britain; behind him is a screen showing a photograph of an African Liberation Day protest march in 1974 in Washington, D.C. — Russell Rickford speaking at ‘Axis of Solidarity: Platforms, Landmarks, Futures’, Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational, 23–25 February 2019
Photo: Jacob Perlmutter

Mechanisms – how we work

Nurturing practice-based research – assisting staff as researchers by supporting their ongoing embedded research activities, building the intellectual and supervisory capacity of the museum, innovating with forms of practice-based research and reflective practice for museum professionals, and surfacing and making accessible the varied research practices across Tate
Showcasing Tate research activity through facilitating internal research seminars
Working with individual researchers – nurturing individual research projects through the Collaborative Doctoral Partnership scheme and Fellowships programmes, creating the conditions through which external researchers can thrive
Research publishing and representation – broadening the range and raising the profile and accessibility of Tate’s research publications, working in collaboration with Curatorial, Interpretation, Tate Publishing, colleagues across Tate and external researchers

Photograph of a man using a virtual reality headset — The Preserving Immersive Media research project explores how to effectively care for artworks which use immersive technologies such as virtual reality headsets
Photo: Jack McConchie

Leading and participating in externally funded research projects – creating opportunities for research across the gallery, strengthening and developing new partnerships, providing opportunities for collaboration and access to a broad range of expertise sometimes from different fields, bringing resources to provide time for reflection, change and future-focused thinking, new knowledge and ideas, enabling staff and the institution to address and adapt to the challenges they face
Providing research resources and support through the Library and Archive for Tate-based researchers and the wider research community
Overseeing research governance – supporting the highest standards of research integrity across all aspects of research at Tate to ensure that participants and others have confidence and trust in the methods and findings of our research
Sector support and guidance – situating Tate as a leader in museum and heritage-focused research, providing leadership in relation to research integrity and ethical practice more widely, working collaboratively wherever possible to nurture research capacity across the sector.

(Research work in close collaboration with the Tate Audience Insights team, drawing on their work and best practice knowledge in producing audience insights. As their remit is on understanding our audiences, this team is based within the Audience division and not within Research).

Published August 2022