Starting from 1 January 2011, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science aims to accommodate the activities of the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (Instituut Collectie Nederland, ICN) within the Institute for Cultural Heritage (Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, RCE). The aim is to safeguard the quality of care for cultural heritage in the Netherlands, while increasing the efficiency of that care at the same time. In the new structure, all expertise in the field of movable and immovable cultural heritage will be combined in one cultural heritage institute. In the new set-up, the part of the ICN that is based in Gabriël Metsustraat in Amsterdam will move to the RCE building in Amersfoort. As a result, around eight positions at the ICN will become redundant. The Ateliergebouw building in Amsterdam will continue to accommodate the ICN’s laboratories and research activities. The State collection, the department of collections and the conservation studios will remain in Rijswijk. RCE facilities in Lelystad include naval archeology workshops as well as the National Naval Archeology Depot.

 

The RCE is the country’s foremost knowledge institute in the field of archeology, monuments and the cultural landscape. The ICN is the primary knowledge institute in the field of movable cultural heritage collections and curates the State art collection. Within the new structure, the two institutes’ current responsibilities will be retained, i.e. providing specialist knowledge and advice, training and information regarding movable and immovable cultural heritage and granting loans from the collection.

 

Further details about the way these plans are going to be implemented will follow at the end of September.