Creating a national integrated mobile and fixed lab for collections, historic buildings and sites

Climate change poses significant challenges for the preservation of collections, historic buildings and sites. Changing environmental conditions accelerate the deterioration of materials whilst the heritage sector is a significant carbon emitter and needs to reduce its carbon footprint. To help understand and address these challenges, the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England (HBMCE) will equip our research infrastructure to improve our capability and capacity to investigate, monitor, model, and mitigate the degradation of historic materials, focusing on factors accelerated by climate change; and analyse environmental conditions to improve energy efficiency, performance, and sustainability of mitigation measures.

English Heritage (EH) and Historic England (HE), which together comprise HBMCE, will create an integrated national mobile and fixed laboratory ecosystem to support research facilitating the sector's mitigation of the climate emergency, advance the world-leading and impactful research of our conservation scientists and enable an unprecedented level of external access to a range of audiences from the heritage sector. The purchase of key fixed and mobile equipment, mobile functionality, and enabling building works will deliver a step-change in comprehensiveness and resource.

New fixed equipment in existing labs at Fort Cumberland, Portsmouth (HE) and Ranger's House, London (EH) will provide multiscale analysis of surfaces and alteration products, including degradation due to climate change, and assess the functionality of conservation treatments, with remote access, scanning electron microscope and rapid analysis and mapping through energy dispersive spectrometry.

The new mobile lab, operating from Ranger's House, will enable analysis of fragile and large objects including buildings, and will focus on in-situ investigation which is crucial for degradation studies. Instruments will focus on materials degradation and building performance, particularly energy efficiency and sustainability - critical research areas for the future of heritage.

They will offer real time monitoring of environmental conditions, including air exchange rate, building modelling, fabric deterioration rate, defects identification and degradation rates of different collection and building materials.

Conservation science technicians will be based at each of the fixed labs to facilitate external access; disseminate research results; manage equipment, resources, and mobile functionality; and provide analytical support.

Collaborative in-kind partnerships extend our national facility's capability, offering partners and external users access to a wider range of research equipment and expertise. Birkbeck College, University of London provides expertise in sequencing and effect sensors, dramatically increasing the research potential. The Victoria & Albert Museum brings experience of large Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning installations and physical response of organic objects.

Cardiff University will provide complementary equipment and expertise to investigate materials decay and durability. The partners will provide portable instrumentation to enhance the mobile laboratory and access to fixed equipment to expand the facility's analytical abilities, gaining in-kind access to HBMCE and each others' equipment and expertise.

The national integrated facility will inform protection of the 420 sites comprising the National Heritage Collection and will be accessible to the heritage sector, addressing unmet demand for our infrastructure from Public Sector Research Establishments; Independent Research Organisations; higher education institutions; museums, galleries and libraries; owners and managers of heritage; and others across England and beyond. We will make our research available in a range of formats including online, so it can benefit the international heritage sector.