This paper argued (notably in 2015) that the opportunity for research in the art museum had never been so rich, as new national and European funding streams continud to recognize the social role and cultural value of the museum. Equally, higher education institutions were being increasingly encouraged to collaborate through research with museums to ensure the public value of their expertise. But as expectations and demands for collaborative research increase, the assumed and targeted beneficiary of this ‘impact’ work – the public – becomes an increasingly troubled concept and complex entity for both the museum and the academy, threatening both curatorial and academic authority.

Drawing on direct experience of a range of AHRC and EU funded research projects and exhibitions (that the author had initiated and led) focused on curating, programming and commissioning, the article discusses how new collaborative research methods are needed which, rooted in situated and interdisciplinary modes of knowledge-generation, can reconnect all three spheres of the museum, the academy and the public by understanding research method as a ‘performative tool of change’ (Law and Urry, 2005). In conclusion, the article considers how new models of practice-led and practice-based research in the art museum are supporting the move from curating as an object-based practice, to the curatorial as a problem-solving form of research leading to new distributed forms of knowledge-production and public engagement. This move is being equally supported and propelled by the redistribution of knowledge through networked online cultures.