As part of the preparations for its 2010 bicentenary celebrations, the Karolinska Institute Medical University has taken an initiative to safeguard archival material as well as other materials of interest. These materials will be able to be utilised for the writing of the history of medicine, by means of a project intended to establish a medicinal history archive. The first phase of this project has very generously received funding from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. The project will make an initial assessment of the material accessible at the Institute, as well as what the further needs are for its collecting, ordering, and safe-keeping with regard to future research purposes. Particular emphasis will be put on the need to document and make available material pertaining to the most recent half-century of scientific and medical activity at the Institute, along with associated institutions. It is, however, also in the interests of the project to maintain a wider framework for its activities. As a consequence, it will collate all material of interest and value for the history of medicine that becomes available during the process. The medicinal history archive is intended to form the first step in a wider plan, which involves the possible institutionalisation of research in, and teaching of, the history of medicine at the Karolinska Institute, in time for the 2010 celebrations.