The Museum für Gestaltung Zürich continuously researches its internationally important collections. The focus is on both basic and applied research, which is carried out in close cooperation with the departments and institutes of the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and other universities.

The museum is open to research projects from all disciplines and actively promotes dialog between science and practice. Basic research such as the processing of estates by students or doctoral students (researchers in residence) and applied research in collaboration with teaching and the private sector are actively promoted by the museum.

The aim is to view the collections from a contemporary perspective and to open them up to transdisciplinary projects. By researching, cataloging and using the collections, their cultural value is made visible.

Publications are an indispensable part of the research activities. Self-published or initiated with publishing partners, the publications focus on pioneers from theory and practice as well as on current research topics and contemporary discourses in the design landscape.

Inventory and documentation is a daily activity that the museum sees as basic research - with differentiated object inventories, detailed photographs or research into biographies. The object database and biographies are continually updated with the latest research findings and serve as the basis for texts and legends in exhibitions and publications, in the museum or at other institutions. A photo studio for two-dimensional objects and a photo studio for three-dimensional objects are available for documentation purposes. Around 4000 objects are inventoried every year.

At the end of 2023, 137,131 objects were recorded in The Museum System (TMS) database, 88,803 of which are available with at least one image at eMuseum.ch. The eMuseum is the most comprehensive illustrated collection database in Switzerland and one of the largest in the field of design and visual communication worldwide. The database not only enables professional research, but also allows users to create and save their own object packages. The objects are linked to each other so that, for example, the exhibition history of an object can be traced. The museum also publishes the database's current thesaurus with all keywords and categories and enables playful access to the collections with the "Browse" function. Since the end of 2023, 323 detailed biographies of the most important Swiss designers have also been available in the eMuseum.

Short biographies and company portraits of selected Swiss creators, designers, graphic artists, producers, agencies and manufacturers are compiled on an ongoing basis. Their work is represented by representative works in the collections of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich.

Since 2019, selected protagonists have also been interviewed about their biography. The interviews are stored in the collection's internal oral history archive and serve as material for exhibition projects and research.

This groundwork is made possible by the Freundeskreis.