Research and documentation

The research area of the Forum Marinum Maritime Centre is primarily defined by its role as a national special museum and as the Finnish Navy Museum.

The documentation responsibility of the Forum Marinum Foundation is defined in its regulations. The aim is to preserve the maritime cultural heritage of Finland’s south-west coast, the Archipelago Sea and the Baltic Sea. Forum Marinum primarily focuses on preserving and documenting the history of professional seafaring in South-West Finland and that of companies, institutions and persons involved in it, as well as of the seaman profession, and on a national level, the history of the Navy. In addition, the centre preserves and documents the culture and history of maritime rescue, the Coast Guard, maritime communities, maritime hobbies, boating and leisure sailing and of institutions connected to these.

The Forum Marinum Maritime Centre is the result of the development of the maritime museum activities in Turku. Its predecessors were the Åbo Akademi Maritime History Museum, established in 1936 and the Turku Maritime Museum and Astronomical Collections, founded in 1977. There was a division of responsibilities between these museums: the former focussed on research and on enlarging and maintaining its library and archive collections, while the latter concentrated on organising exhibitions and on enlarging and preserving object collections. These functions now all continue at the maritime centre.