Research is one of the m.a.x. museo’s principal activities. It is carried out by the museum’s own staff on topics connected with scheduled exhibitions, as well as by external researchers, university students and scholars, by agreement with the museum’s management and on formulation of a shared and approved plan of work.
Within the museum’s fields of interest, reference is made to the document “Mission and Institutional Purposes”, in which the m.a.x. museo identifies specific research fields that are the subject of medium-term and long-term scientific interest.
Generally the m.a.x. museo’s activities are organised in keeping with an orderly system that can be summed up in four different sets:
- general activities
- research and development
- temporary exhibitions
- communications
These activities are conducted and managed::
- by the m.a.x. museo’s staff, which comprises professional skills that cut across the activities carried out in the Chiasso Cultural Centre;
- by technical and scholarly external collaborators who work with the m.a.x. museo occasionally on specific projects and for limited periods.
Museum staff and external collaborators – technical and scientific – may be assisted by employees of the City of Chiasso from other services (Technical Office, Social Services, Department of the Environment, IT Service, Culture in Movement, etc.) and trainees (interns).
From the point of view of their implementation, the museum’s activities are divided into current activities and project activities .
The current activities are continuous and customary activities, usually described in duties of personnel and in the regulations of the various internal services.
Project activities are interim (including long-term) activities, which normally require specific planning and programming (a project). This may also be the case with research projects at the cantonal or international level (European research projects or projects of the Swiss National Fund for Scientific Research FNSRS), whose funding increases the museum’s research activities.
Subdivision of the workload between the two types of activity varies significantly depending on the fields involved, from a maximum of current activities for reception, surveillance and regular maintenance activities, to a maximum of project activities for research.