Museums: Missions and Acquisitions (M2A) Project

• A three-year research project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the M2A Project is documenting collecting practices within American museums that have historically held cultural objects—including fine art, archaeological, and ethnographic collections—with a focus on the lifecycle of collections, from acquisition to deaccessioning, as well as the relationship between museums’ collecting practices and missions. The project is developing data that have never before been brought together on this scale and made available to museum leaders and policymakers.
• The M2A Project grows out of the PennCHC’s work on the Cultural Property Experts On Call (CPEOC) Program. Established under a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Department of State’s Cultural Heritage Coordinating Committee, the CPEOC Program assists U.S. law enforcement agents in identifying cultural objects in federal investigations. Since 2020, the PennCHC has collaborated with experts from more than 100 museums and universities to identify and collect data on cultural property. The M2A Project builds on this momentum to address questions of collecting, object ownership, and provenance in the context of U.S. museums.

• The PennCHC’s Director of Research and Programs, Brian I. Daniels, serves as the principal investigator and Executive Director, Richard M. Leventhal, serves as co-principal investigator of the M2A Project. The PennCHC’s Administrative Coordinator, Corinne Muller, and Research Coordinator, Kayla Kane, are also part of the core project team.
• The M2A Project includes Research Analysts Soleil Hawley, Daniela Tanico, and Alyssa Thiel, as well as undergraduate and graduate student researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and beyond.
• The M2A Project is designed and implemented by the PennCHC staff who operate the Cultural Property Experts On Call (CPEOC) Program. For four years, the CPEOC Program has been working at the intersection of law enforcement, academia, and museums to track data on cultural property imports as they are being detained by law enforcement and to engage the expertise of subject matter experts attuned to the ethics of acquiring imported collections.

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 will be freely available online and shared directly with stakeholders in the museum sector, government agencies, and grantmaking organizations.

• Across the country, many museum practitioners and stakeholders are looking to rethink collecting practices and identify models that reshape the social purpose of museums and their collections. The findings shared in the M2A Project’s state-of-the-field report will help museum staff at all levels of the profession, cultural leaders, trustees, grantmakers, and policymakers champion higher collecting standards and strengthen museum services for the American public.
• The state-of-the-field report will also educate the American public on the role of museums as stewards of cultural heritage and the actions they can take to maintain public trust in their collecting practices.