Partners

Primary Partners

The Tunisian National Heritage Institute (Institut National du Patrimoine or INP) is a scientific and technical institution in the Tunisian Ministry of Culture. It is responsible for maintaining an inventory of the country’s cultural, archaeological, historical, civilizational, and artistic heritage, also for its study, preservation, and promotion. The National Laboratory for the Preservation and Conservation of Parchment and Manuscripts (NLPCPM) in Raqqada, Kairouan, is part of the INP, and both support the goals of the KMP.

Supporting Partners

	Cambridge University Library is one of the world’s oldest university libraries—and home to one of the world’s great collections of cultural treasures and research materials. Since its first recorded beginnings in 1416, as a small chest of manuscripts for Cambridge scholars, the Library is now home to a physical collection of nearly ten million books, maps, manuscripts, photographs and priceless objects, spanning thousands of years of human thought and discovery—in more than 2,000 languages. It makes a significant in-kind contribution to the Kairouan Manuscript Project (KMP) by supporting the official participation of its head of conservation and heritage, Kristine Rose-Beers, on the KMP leadership team and enabling her to make multiple visits to Hamburg and Tunisia annually to provide on-site collection care and management consultancy to the National Laboratory for the Preservation and Conservation of Parchment and Manuscripts in Kairouan and conservation and manuscript studies training to its staff.
	The Cologne Institute of Conservation Sciences (CICS) at TH Köln is one Germany’s leading centres of conservation research and education. It makes a generous in-kind contribution to the Kairouan Manuscript Project’s collection care and management activities, especially the design, delivery, and evaluation of conservation-related professional development courses, by covering the consultancy fees of CICS research associate and instructor Marlen Börngen and enabling her travel to Tunisia. Ms Börngen also assists with the mentorship of the participants in the early-career conservator internship programme.
	The University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), established in 1967, is the second-largest of the University of Toronto’s three campuses. UTM’s Old Books New Science Lab—a centre for scholarship on new scientific and global approaches to medieval book history; digital text editing and computational approaches to humanities research; and medieval literary studies—made a generous donation of collection care-related equipment and materials to support the Kairouan Manuscript Project’s professional development courses on preventive conservation and the implementation of environmental monitoring and integrated pest management programmes at the National Laboratory for the Preservation and Conservation of Parchment and Manuscripts in Kairouan (NLPCPM). Since mid-2023, the Mellon-funded grant project Hidden Stories: New Approaches to the Local and Global History of the Book—a collaboration between the University of Toronto and the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, New Jersey, USA)—has supported the KMP’s early-career conservator internship programme at the NLPCPM. This programme, first financed by the Barakat Trust, enables the transfer of knowledge, skills, and expertise from one generation of Tunisian book and paper conservators to the next to ensure the ongoing care of the NLPCPM’s collections.

Former Supporting Partners

	The Barakat Trust supports and promotes the study and preservation of Islamic art, heritage, architecture, and culture for future generations. In 2020, it awarded the Kairouan Manuscript Project (KMP) a grant to create the early-career conservator internship programme at the National Laboratory for the Preservation and Conservation of Parchment and Manuscripts in Kairouan (NLPCPM), which enables the transfer of knowledge, skills, and expertise from one generation of Tunisian book and paper conservators to the next to ensure the ongoing care of the NLPCPM’s collections. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the internship programme could not begin until mid-2021. In 2022, the Barakat Trust awarded the KMP a second grant, which enabled the continuation of the internship programme for an additional year.
	Cardiff University, founded in 1883, is one of Britain’s leading research universities. It supported the delivery of the Kairouan Manuscript Project’s ten-week professional development course Managing the Archive, Library, and Museum Environment by making an in-kind contribution to the teaching costs of instructors Jane Henderson, professor of conservation, and Phil Parkes, reader in conservation.
	The Chester Beatty is the pre-eminent Irish museum promoting the appreciation and understanding of world cultures, with holdings of manuscripts, rare books, and other treasures from Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. It made a significant in-kind contribution to the Kairouan Manuscript Project (KMP) by supporting the official participation of its then head of conservation, Kristine Rose-Beers, on the KMP leadership team.
	Collections Care Consultancy is led by Amy Crossman, an objects conservator and collections care and management specialist known internationally for her expertise in integrated pest management (IPM). She designed and delivered a course on IPM to the National Laboratory for the Preservation and Conservation of Parchment and Manuscripts in Kairouan (NLPCPM) as part of the Kairouan Manuscript Project’s professional development programme. She also donated equipment and materials towards the implementation of an IPM strategy at the NLPCPM. She has developed numerous resources on IPM, including publications in Arabic.
	The Maison européenne des sciences de l’homme et de la société (MESHS), or European Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences, is a research centre located in Lille, France. It belongs to the French national network of Research Institutes in Humanities and Social Sciences and is under the authority of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the universities of the Hauts de France region in Northern France, including the University of Lille. In 2018, MESHS funded KMP leadership team member Asma Helali’s first trip to Kairouan to work with the NLPCPM’s collections. In 2022, MESHS hosted a one-day conference on Kairouani manuscripts titled Les manuscripts religieux dans la collection de Raqqada et le problème du Genre, which was convened by Asma Helali, and covered the participation costs of the conference speakers.
	Historyonics—founded by Bob Child, former head of conservation of the National Museum of Wales, and now directed by David Loughlin—is an industry leader in the development of integrated pest management (IPM) solutions for cultural heritage institutions. It supported the delivery of the Kairouan Manuscript Project’s professional development training on IPM and the implementation of IPM strategies at the National Laboratory for the Preservation and Conservation of Parchment and Manuscripts in Kairouan through the donation of consultancy and traps.
	The Islamic Manuscript Association is an international non-profit organisation dedicated to protecting Islamic manuscript collections and supporting those who work with them. In 2019, it made a major in-kind contribution to the Kairouan Manuscript Project (KMP) by sponsoring a collection needs assessment of the National Laboratory for the Preservation and Conservation of Parchment and Manuscripts in Kairouan made by then Association executive director, Davidson MacLaren, and assistant director, Ana Beny, with the assistance of KMP co-founder Asma Helali. It also supported Davidson MacLaren’s official participation on the KMP leadership team.
	The Pennsylvania State University supported the Kairouan Manuscript Project (KMP) through research grants from the College of the Liberal Arts and the Center for Humanities and Information. This funding made possible the collection and translation of oral histories about the National Laboratory for the Preservation and Conservation of Parchment and Manuscripts (NLPCPM) and Kairouani manuscript cultures, as well as the organisation of academic conferences on Qur’anic and legal manuscripts in the NLPCPM’s collections. The university is the academic home of KMP co-founder Jonathan Brockopp, professor of history, religious studies, and philosophy, who served on the KMP’s leadership team.