| Abstract: | Abstract: In the past several years, a number of countries have substantially reformed the administrative structures of their national museums in order to make these institutions more popular, efficient and profitable. This has led to a certain shift in the way national museums' traditional public missions are viewed. By favouring administrative decentralization and self-financing strategies, several of these reforms have also helped to shape the functions traditionally performed by museums by encouraging activities that are more likely to generate income rather than behind-the-scenes activities such as research. In light of the major administrative changes being made at national museums, this article aims to examine research as a public mission of Canada's national museums, in order to determine the impact of these reforms on the administration and regulation procedures that apply to this important yet albeit very discreet museological function. Beginning with the discussions focusing on the decentralization of heritage in the 1980s, and going through the dissolution of the National Museums of Canada Corporation in 1987 and the implementation of strategic planning systems in the 1990s, we note a gradual decrease in professional self-regulation as it applies to curators, as well as a certain decline in curators' academic autonomy in terms of their ability to control research activity initiatives. |
