Museums Victoria Research Institute
Help us shape the way in which we safeguard and protect our places, our heritage, and our peoples into the future.
Museums Victoria is a leading museum research organisation with an international reputation as a trusted source of knowledge and insight.
The Museums Victoria Research Institute is reimagining museum research, drawing on contemporary science and First Peoples knowledge systems to expand our understanding of our rapidly changing world.
As Australasia’s largest museum organisation, Museums Victoria is uniquely positioned to catalyse change by sharing our discoveries with our growing audiences.
Each year our groundbreaking research is shared with communities across Victoria and around the world through our network of museums, across our partnerships with universities internationally, via our education programs and across our digital channels that reach millions of people.
The initiatives outlined below are examples of future projects we aspire to deliver with your support.
Community in Water: Monitoring the Endangered Australasian Bittern
Museums Victoria and the Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation are working together to pioneer an innovative citizen-science project that will empower local communities while helping to preserve one of Australia’s most threatened birds.
Detecting Australasian Bitterns is particularly challenging due to their broad distribution and highly effective, cryptic coloration that makes them almost impossible to spot in the wild. Using a combination of digital acoustics and groundbreaking genetic sequencing methods, this project will monitor possible Bittern sites to determine whether the birds are present, while documenting other species in the wetland locations.
By working directly with the Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation and other community groups, the survey areas can be broadened, creating valuable conservation training and employment opportunities. Successfully delivered, these pioneering, community-accessible approaches will provide an important model for future citizen-science projects that embed new skills in communities and strengthen connections between Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge systems.
Back to Country: Reconnecting Cultural Material to People and Country
Museums Victoria cares for more than 30,000 items from southeastern Australia in the First Peoples Collections. This material represents a significant living archive of cultural knowledges, histories and stories.
We recognise the importance of returning cultural material to People and Country, and the vital role Museums Victoria must play in doing so. Back to Country is a pilot project that will provide digitised access for First Peoples communities to all objects and photographs provenanced to Victoria in the First Peoples Collections – a critical mechanism in our continuing commitment to repatriating cultural material.
Support for Back to Country will reconnect individuals, families and communities with their cultural material. Using best-practice digital encryption to ensure secure access, the project will support self-determination for First Peoples cultural materials in Museums Victoria’s care.
Freezing Cells to Safeguard Wildlife
Our Research Institute scientists are pioneering cell cryopreservation techniques that are vital to conserving Victoria’s most vulnerable species.
Cell cryopreservation – storing living cells at temperatures around -196°C – provides a living resource of cells, their DNA and other biomolecules, that can be kept alive for centuries, safeguarding genetic diversity which, in turn, enhances other strategies to protect the environment.
Research Institute scientists will complete the pilot project for this important research in August 2023, thanks to the generous support of The Holsworth Charitable Gift and enabled by Museums Victoria’s Ian Potter Australian Wildlife BioBank, the only cryopreservation facility in an Australian museum and one of only a handful nationally.
We aim to build the most biodiverse collection of living cells of Australian wildlife. With your support, we can amplify this vital program and optimise the technology to improve long-term outcomes for a broader range of mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian and invertebrate species.
The Lost World of Bayside Fossils Project
Support our groundbreaking research and new fossil discoveries to help us gain critical insights into the prehistoric sea creatures that once inhabited out teeming oceans.
Donate and support
Donations of $2 or more are tax deductible.
If you would like to learn more about our projects, please contact the Museums Victoria Development Team on +61 (0) 435 174 216 or email [email protected].
Support the Museums Victoria Research Institute while enjoying exclusive access to the world of our museums by becoming a Director’s Circle Patron.
Unless otherwise agreed, Museums Victoria reserves the right to determine at its sole discretion the initiatives to be delivered and how any donated funds are to be applied.