£100,000 Arts Council Funding to share museum and university expertise

Museums and universities in London will share their mutual knowledge and expertise in innovative new ways, following the award of an Arts Council Grant to UCL, in partnership with University of the Arts London (UAL). UCL and UAL will partner with the London Museums Group (LMG), which represents some 250 museums across the capital, to explore how London's specialist museums can be further enriched by connecting them with additional resources and sources of expertise within universities. Universities can offer museums expertise in a wide range of subjects, including conservation and curating, new technologies and in-depth knowledge in disciplines such as science and geology. For their part, museums often have deep experience of community engagement and audience interaction and hold unique resources in their collections and archives. They can offer universities creative and dramatic environments for teaching and public engagement, real life test-beds for critical theory, as well as opportunities for students to participate in museum life. We know from experience that university museums can act as bridges between universities and the museums sector - Sally MacDonald The project aims to broker relationships between museums and academics, looking at areas such as the adoption of new technologies, schemes for student volunteers and internships in museums and projects that bring research innovations straight to museum audiences. A detailed scoping survey will provide a platform for these projects and will help inform university-museum partnerships elsewhere in the UK.