This equipment investment project will enable Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) to achieve the full scale of our ambition as a cross-disciplinary Independent Research Organisation (IRO) within the heritage science landscape. HRP is an independent charity which cares for six historic royal sites: the UNESCO World Heritage Site Tower of London; Hampton Court Palace; Kensington Palace; the Banqueting House White Hall; Kew Palace, Kew Pagoda and Queen Charlotte's Cottage; and Hillsborough Castle and Gardens. HRP are the trusted custodians of more than 60,000 objects, with one of the largest number of tapestries, baroque wall paintings and state beds on display in the UK. The Collection is housed in more than 1,000 rooms across the six sites. The HRP scientific laboratory was founded 30 years ago and since then HRP has established a distinguished reputation in the field of heritage science and conservation research, collaborating extensively with academic, heritage and industry partners on innovative projects and the supervision of doctoral students and disseminating results through publications and papers. This work has included the sharing of equipment and access to on site spaces, collections and resources. The HRP scientific laboratory was initially set up to investigate historic textiles, most notably the internationally significant collection of tapestries at Hampton Court Palace. Over the years, however, both the scope of work needed across the entirety of HRP's buildings and collections and developments in technologies and equipment mean that despite ongoing investment by the charity the laboratory is in need of significant capital investment to enable HRP and its collaborators to continue their pioneering research. The proposed equipment upgrade will result in a step-change in the ability of HRP and its partners to undertake detailed scientific and aesthetical analysis of heritage assets and complement the currently available instrumentation by providing in depth information and data on the condition, materials and manufacturing techniques of our palaces and collections. More specifically, the upgrade will enable HRP to pursue three research discovery projects within the early years of the new infrastructure. Banqueting House Rubens Ceilings Paintings aims to undertake complex surveys and cross-discipline analysis to determine how the paintings were created, have altered through material degradation or restoration interventions and establish an accurate record of their present condition to inform changes in visual perception and interpretation over time. Hampton Court Historic Tapestries Protection seeks to integrate and process 10 years of environmental monitoring data and other technical research on the tapestries to improve understanding and preservation of historic tapestries using Building Information Modelling. Non-invasive method to measure damage on historic tapestries using hyperspectral imaging, could be another potential research collaboration between HRP and UCL which would seek funding from AHRC for a larger-scale project to set up a bespoke imaging project in Hampton Court Palace to predict the level of damage on tapestries in-situ using instrumentation funded by this call. HRP receives no funding from central government or the Crown, and is therefore solely reliant on income from visitors, members, donors, sponsors and research funding. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic HRP has seen a shortfall in income of 95 million pounds in the financial year 2020-2021 and does not project recovery of pre-pandemic visitor numbers until 2023-24 at the earliest. Despite HRPs commitment to heritage science and the HRP scientific laboratory, therefore, it is highly unlikely that there will be funds available from within the organisation for the proposed equipment investment for at least the next five years.