Funding Research

The Funding Gap

Art-historical research has long been underfunded relative to its cultural importance. University departments face shrinking budgets. Museum research positions have been cut. The kind of deep, patient scholarship that produces a catalogue raisonné — work that may take a decade and yield no immediate commercial return — struggles to find support in a landscape increasingly oriented toward short-term outputs.

At the same time, the art market generates billions of dollars annually, much of it dependent on the very attributions and provenance research that this funding gap threatens. VeraCorpus sits at the intersection of these two realities, and we believe we have both an opportunity and an obligation to direct resources toward the foundational research on which the entire ecosystem depends.

What We Fund

Our funding priorities are shaped by a single criterion: does this research produce new knowledge that will be useful beyond the individual project? We are particularly interested in:

• Attribution studies — rigorous, evidence-based investigations into disputed or unresolved attributions, especially those that establish new methodological frameworks others can apply.
• Provenance research — projects that close gaps in ownership histories, with particular attention to works displaced during conflict, colonial periods, or forced sales.
• Technical art history — studies that combine scientific analysis with traditional connoisseurship to establish new diagnostic criteria for dating, localisation, or authorship.
• Data infrastructure — projects that digitise, structure, or make accessible primary sources that are currently locked in physical archives or proprietary systems.

Open Knowledge

All research funded through VeraCorpus carries an open-access requirement. Findings must be published in venues accessible to the broader scholarly community, and any structured data produced must be made available for reuse under permissive terms. We are not funding proprietary research; we are investing in the commons.

This commitment reflects our conviction that the long-term value of art-historical knowledge is maximised when it circulates freely. A provenance discovery locked behind a paywall helps one collector; the same discovery in an open database helps every scholar, dealer, and institution working on related questions.

How to Apply

We welcome proposals from independent scholars, university researchers, museum professionals, and graduate students. There is no fixed application cycle — proposals are reviewed on a rolling basis. If you are working on a question that aligns with our priorities and needs support, we want to hear from you.

Contact us at [email protected] with a brief description of your project, its expected outputs, and the resources you need.