Three teams on three sites

The Conservation Research Centre (CRC, UAR 3224) was established in 2012 through the merger of three pre-existing laboratories, each with its own unique history and professional culture. Initially, the Centre de Recherche sur la Conservation des Collections (CRCC), located at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN), merged with the Laboratoire de Recherche des Monuments Historiques (LRMH), a national department under the Ministry of Culture and Communication (MCC). In 2014, the CRC further expanded by integrating the Conservation Research Team (ECR team) from the Musée de la Musique (Cité de la musique-Philharmonie de Paris, a public industrial and commercial establishment also overseen by the Ministry of Culture and Communication.

The three laboratories are located at different sites across the Île-de-France region, each geographically distant from the others:

• The CRCC (Centre de Recherche sur la Conservation des Collections) at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris’s 5th arrondissement.

• The LRMH (Laboratoire de Recherche des Monuments Historiques) in Champs-sur-Marne (Seine-et-Marne, 77).

• The ECR (Conservation Research Team) at the Musée de la Musique, located within the Cité de la Musique-Philharmonie de Paris in the 19th arrondissement of Paris.

The CRC comprises around fifty scientists, including chemists, physicists, biologists, art historians, and historians of science and technology, distributed across three locations. Their research focuses on heritage objects, archives, libraries, and historic monuments, aiming to understand the materials and processes of deterioration, as well as to develop preventive and curative conservation techniques.

In addition to their individual research areas, the three teams collaborate on establishing shared approaches in various fields, particularly:

• Instrumentation and analytical methods,
• Biodeterioration,
• Color,
• Coatings,
• Wood,
• Structures.

This new dynamic has fostered collaborative efforts and involvement in various regional and European projects.

At the regional level, the unit was a member of the Major Interest Domain (DIM) Ancient and Heritage Materials (MAP), and is now part of the DIM Material Heritage: Innovation, Experimentation, Resilience (PAMIR). It is also affiliated with the Fondation des Sciences du Patrimoine (FSP), a continuation of the LabEx Patrima initiative. At the European level, the unit participates in the E-RIHS France (European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science) prefiguration, which aims to establish a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC). This ERIC project builds on a series of previous European initiatives, including Iperion-CH and Iperion-HS, in which ArchLab, MoLab, and FixLab play a key role.