The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa will become home to a "centre of excellence" devoted to photography, gallery officials announced this morning.

The "ambitious" initiative involves a partnership with Thomson Reuters Corp. chair and noted art collector David Thomson, who will help build the institute's collection by offering a "series of donations and acquisitions over the next 10 years," said the gallery.

The new initiative is supported by what the gallery called its largest-ever corporate donation — a $10 million gift from Scotiabank. The gallery's Grand Hall has been renamed the Scotiabank Grand Hall for the next 15 years.

First public exhibition in 2016

The institute's first major public photography exhibition will take place in May 2016 and will be drawn from the news archives of The Globe and Mail, the gallery said.

The Canadian Photography Institute will allow the gallery to "take its place among the very deepest, most comprehensive, and broadly useful public collections of photographs in the world," chief executive officer and gallery director Marc Mayer said.

As part of the institute's creation, the national gallery will devote a space exclusively to the exhibition of photographic works, Mayer said.

Its collection of photographs will be digitized, which Mayer said will help other museums across the country.

Marc Mayer says Canadian Photography Institute will begin next week with a symposium to chronicle history of Canadian photography 0:33

The institute's own website describes the institute as a "world-class, multidisciplinary research centre dedicated to the history, evolution and future of photography."

The gallery currently houses exhibitions from the former Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, which closed in 2009.