The Mission Museum participates in initiatives for research and maintenance of missionary collections.

> in 2016, an initial survey among missionary orders about their collections initiated by the German Conference of Superiors of Religious Orders (DOK) was evaluated by the museum.

The results were presented at the symposium Missionsgeschichtliche Sammlungen heute. Herausforderungen, Chancen, Visionen (Missionary Collections Today. Challenges, Opportunities, Visions) organized by LVR / LWL-Museumsamt für Westfalen at St. Augustin/Bonn on March 23-24, 2017.

The contribution Zur besonderen Situation missionsgeschichtlicher Sammlungen (The Special Situation of Missionary Collections) was published in several mediums (ordenskorrespondenz, issue 4/2017; conference transcript Studia Instituti Missiologici SVD, orden.de)

> During fall and winter 2021/22, the museum took a detailed inventory in 51 houses of catholic missionary religious orders and 14 protestant mission boards; the results were summarized in the article Fremde Welten. Eine Bestandsaufnahme missionarischer Sammlungen (Distant worlds. An Inventory of Missionary Collections) (ordenskorrespondenz, issue 2/2022).

> On June 1-3, 2022, the conference Missionsgeschichtliche Sammlungen heute: Das Museum als Kontaktzone (Missionary Collections Today. The Museum as Contact Zone) took place at the Centrum für Religionswissenschaftliche Studien (Center for religious studies, CERES) at Bochum Ruhr University. The museum presented the article Museum – historisches Erbe – Wunderkammer? Differenzierung und museologische Einordnung missionarischer Sammlungen (Museum - Heritage - Cabinet of Curiosities? Distinction and Museological Categorisation of Missionary Collections). A companion volume will be published in 2023.

Between 2018 and 2020, two traditional groom's costumes from the museum's inventory were restored in Korea. One of the garments was donated after restoration to Seoul's National Folk Museum. The other costume was returned to the museum.

These articles of clothing called dallyeong (literally: robe with a round collar) were the groom's attire on his wedding day. They are similar in style to traditional official's garments of the Joseon epoch (1392 - 1910).

However, the museum's pieces of clothing are of recent times; experts estimated the 1960ies as their fabrication date after having executed a fiber samples analysis; then, the lining was made of artificial silk (rayon). The collector, Br. Bonaventura Schuster OSB acquired both garments around 1960. Groom's costumes from this time are extremely rare in Korea; therefore, the dallyeong continues to be an object of research.

In 2018/19, the Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation executed conservation works on five Korean paintings. Restoration and mounting in the traditional scroll format was conducted by Jung-Jae Conservation Center (Seoul).

Three of the five paintings are rarities, as they are drawn with a leather brush; only a few samples of this technique are known in Korea. The painters, among them Hong Jae-man and Song Yeom-jo, were unknown in Korea up to the time of restoration and research. An interesting detail about the paintings is that they are supposed to be influenced or commissioned by missionaries, as Christian issues like trinity are addressed.

From July 3 - 6, 2018, the Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation (OKCHF) initiated a workshop about production and conservation techniques of traditional Korean scroll paintings at St. Ottilien.

The workshop was aimed at training European restorators in Korean techniques of paper handling and building a network between experts in museums and institutions outside Korea with collections holding Korean objects.

The restoration was demonstrated on the example of the Mission Museum's scroll Rainbow Painting by Song Yeom-jo. During the practical part, the participants, all of them experts for paper restoration in internationally renowned museums and other institutions, made themselves a scroll painting under the guidance of Prof. Chi-sun Park (professor of Cultural Preservation, Yongin University, Korea).

This governmental organization from Seoul promotes research and adequate presentation of Korean heritage in institutions outside Korea and supports conservation and restoration of objects.

Other tasks are scientific research, documentation of museum inventories and surveillance of the international art market in order to identify illegally purchased Korean heritage.

Several teams of Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation (OKCHF) carried out a scientific investigation and provence research of the Mission Museum's Korea collection between 2015 and 2017.

During the longstandig collaboration with the OKCHF, our museum already donated several objects on our own initiative to South Korea.
> Link to OKCHF

The Museum 5 Kontinente (5 Continents Museum), former Museum of Ethnology Munich, has historical connections to the Mission Museum since the 1920ies.

St. Ottilien's former archabbot Norbert Weber had contact and scientific exchange with the Ethnological Museum Munich's director, Lucian Sherman. When the Ethnological Museum had a job vacancy, archabbot Norbert Weber recommended St. Ottilien's studied ethnologist Fr. Meinulf Küsters OSB (1890 - 1947).

In 1927/28, Küsters collected in Tanganjika as well for the Ethnological Museum as for the Mission Museum. He designed the Africa presentations in both museums.
> Link to Museum 5 Kontinente