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Using technology to drive audience engagement, boosting the digital capability of cultural organisations and unleashing the creative potential of technology.

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The #CultureisDigital project was informed by an online open conversation last year and was borne out of the Government's Culture White Paper commitment to review the digitisation of our public collections and enhance the online cultural experience.

It also builds upon the Government's UK Digital Strategy commitment to increase digital skills, digital participation and unlock the power of data.

In responding to these challenges, the report showcases innovative projects in the creative sector, highlighting the extraordinary collaborations between our world-leading cultural and digital pioneers and makes 12 policy commitments.

Read the news release.

Explore highlights in our 360 VR presentation.

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Using technology to drive audience engagement, boosting the digital capability of cultural organisations and unleashing the creative potential of technology. The #CultureisDigital project was informed by an online open conversation last year and was borne out of the Government's Culture White Paper commitment to review the digitisation of our public collections and enhance the online cultural experience.

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Arts Council England and Nesta's study of technology usage and impact among arts and culture organisations.

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Experimental Culture: A horizon scan for the arts and culture sector | Nesta

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Each chapter includes a short summary of the current context for organisations operating in the (publicly-funded) arts and cultural sector, followed by a section which looks ahead to the opportunities and challenges these drivers could present over the coming decade.

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Research from the University of Warwick and the University of Leicester, being launched today [19] in Vancouver, will help to transform the ways UK museums use digital technologies to share their collections and engage new audiences with their work.

Effective digital strategies can help museums make their collections more accessible, break down barriers to access, and find innovative ways to engage a wider audience. To do this well requires a high level of digital literacy among staff and volunteers.

A team from CAMEo at Leicester and the Institute for Employment Research at Warwick visited a range of UK museums to find out how staff and volunteers are currently using digital technology, and to investigate how demand for these skills is changing. Their findings are published in a new report today.

Their report concludes the first phase of the One by One project, an interdisciplinary project led by Dr Ross Parry from the School of Museum Studies and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

Dr Parry said: "This is an extremely timely and important piece of live research. The Government has recently challenged museums, within the wider culture sector, to reflect on how they might articulate and measure their levels of digital maturity and - specifically - to consider the digital skills needed for sector transformation. This is exactly what our 'One by One' project is charged to do."

Dr Doris Ruth Eikhof, Deputy Director of CAMEo, said: "Digital skills are key to the cultural and creative industries -Arts Council England, the UK Government, and Nesta have all recently emphasised that. One-by-one asks how these digital priorities and opportunities for arts and culture play out in practice: how are museums staff driving digital innovation? How are they developing their digital skills? How are digital literacies changing the museums sector? CAMEo is delighted to provide, in close collaboration with colleagues from the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick, new insight and inputs into this debate."

Dr Sally-Anne Barnes, who led the IER team, said: "This important study offers a new approach to understanding and developing digital literacy in the UK museum sector. Today's Phase One report maps the ways that digital skills are currently supplied, developed and deployed in the UK museum sector and has also pinpointed important changes in current demand for these skills.

"Our findings highlight how digital responsibilities and skills are managed and shared by those working in museums.

The report finds:-

Museums have taken different approaches to developing and managing digital skills.

Museums are exploring, learning and demanding new digital skills to help them innovate and create with digital.

While all museum roles now have some kind of digital element, digital skills are not in ready supply throughout the museum workforce.

Museums typically rely on in-house and ad hoc training to develop digital skills among their staff and volunteers.

The need for a systematic approach to assessing and identifying skills needs is recognised but museums lack the time to do the work.

Dr Barnes added: "We have demonstrated that there is great potential to create a digitally confident museum workforce that can adapt and evolve with technology.

"The phase one findings offer museums and the cultural sector an opportunity to reflect on their own digital skills and how they can be used to take advantage of digital. The next phases of the project will start defining, prototyping and testing practical activities that help build digital literacies."

Commenting on the broader aims of the One by One project, Dr Parry said:

"There is an exciting opportunity here to leverage research from the HE sector to make a substantive and poignant contribution to this strategic government priority. Our research can help deliver this change.

"The initial findings of the project, in this first phase, give us a fantastic starting point. We now have a high resolution and evidenced picture of exactly where the skills are in the sector and how they are being used and developed.

"It is this context that will allow us now to begin to develop a new national framework for digitally upskilling the UK museum sector."
ENDS The report can be downloaded here: https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstream/2381/41572/2/One%20by%20One_Phase1_Report.pdf
Project website: http://www.one-by-one.uk/

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Warwick and Leicester researchers help map the route to a highly skilled digital future for museums

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Research from the University of Warwick and the University of Leicester, being launched today [19] in Vancouver, will help to transform the ways UK museums use digital technologies to share their collections and engage new audiences with their work.

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Publication aims to offer a guide to good practice

A new report that explores the development of health and wellbeing work in museums and offers a guide to good practice has been launched by the National Alliance for Museums, Health and Wellbeing (NAMHW).

The Museums as Spaces for Wellbeing report is aimed at both the health and museum sectors. It is designed to provide "the basis for the health sector to strategically embed the role of the museums and the heritage sector at national and local level", according to a foreword by Duncan Selbie, the chief executive of Public Health England.

The report's findings are based on a sector-wide survey, as well as consultation with museum professionals and organisations including the Museums Association.

The publication features case studies that show how the sector is responding creatively to health and wellbeing areas such as an ageing population, entrenched health inequalities and green wellbeing.

These include Yorkshire Sculpture Park's Art and Social events programme, which aims to address loneliness and isolation among older people, and the Sensing Culture group at the Beaney's House of Art and Knowledge in Canterbury, which is for adults with sight loss.

Other case studies include Birmingham Museum Trust's Creative Carers programme, which offers a creative outlet to people in a caring role, and Mansfield Museum's Health and Wellbeing Festival and Feel-Good Friday sessions.

The report also analyses how the museum sector is meeting organisational opportunities and challenges in five areas: new audiences, partnership, evaluation, organisational change and funding.

Its findings show that the evaluation of health and wellbeing provision is an area of concern for museum and heritage professionals, and that some had also faced difficulty navigating or building partnerships with the health sector.

Museums as Spaces for Wellbeing is the second report to be published by the alliance since it formed in 2015.

At the end of this month, the NAMHW is due to merge with the National Alliance for Arts, Health and Wellbeing to become the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance. The new organisation will be a Sector Support Organisation under Arts Council England
The latest edition of Museum Practice explores how museums can promote wellbeing in visitors, staff and volunteers.

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Report explores health and wellbeing provision in museums | Museums Association

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Publication aims to offer a guide to good practice A new report that explores the development of health and wellbeing work in museums and offers a guide to good practice has been launched by the National Alliance for Museums, Health and Wellbeing (NAMHW).

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The Heritage Alliance has published the first ever report on the independent heritage sector's impact overseas.

The report, sponsored by the Scottish Confucius Institute for Business & Communication at Heriot-Watt University, makes recommendations for building on the success of the overall sector which already generates £21.7 billion a year. The Heritage Alliance hopes that the report will not only help develop international opportunities for a post Brexit Britain but also inform international discussions such as April's Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2018 in London.

Loyd Grossman, Chairman of the Heritage Alliance, said: 'We're delighted that this report has so clearly demonstrated that our world-leading heritage skills are already doing so much to support 'Brand Britain'. We hope that, as we enter a new post Brexit landscape, these recommendations will galvanise the Government to support the independent heritage sector to maximise its already impressive economic impact and soft power role.'

England's heritage industry is already a major contributor to the national economy - directly generating at least £10 billion in gross value added (GVA) and indirectly generating 2% of national GVA (£21.7 billion). This is more than the agriculture and aerospace sectors combined.

Our heritage is front and centre of the UK's unique offer on the international stage, from our enduring success as a tourism magnet powered by our famous historic houses and monuments, to our world-leading expertise in pioneering heritage science to our archaeological accreditation process. Although recognised in principle by the Foreign Secretary, much of this enterprise by the non-government heritage bodies is undertaken below the official radars, or those arranging trade delegations and other cultural bodies.

The report highlights examples of the sector's expertise and explores some of the innovative projects in case studies (summarised in the notes to editors section below). It notes that Heritage Alliance members are engaging in at least 38 countries across all seven continents; and how cultural relations developed by these civil society organisations add a 'values' dimension to soft power rankings, offering an independent and complementary network to government diplomacy (increasingly important as traditional diplomacy with countries such as Russia becomes more challenging). However, the report notes that international heritage work, especially by the UK's vigorous civil society movement, is badly served by current statistics.

The recommendations set out in the report are a starting point for Government to crystallise the support it promised to the voluntary heritage sector's international work in its 'Heritage Statement' in December last year. The Heritage Alliance report recommends:

Support for backfilling posts especially when senior expertise in small organisations are concentrating on international work;

Travel bursaries to help promote exchanges of heritage professionals and students in support of project work;

A Heritage Alliance event with partners to explore international engagement and funding opportunities;

A similar initiative to the Artists' International Development Fund to facilitate international exchange in a heritage context;

Visa exemptions for accredited experts and academics in the field should be considered after Brexit. Any visa system should be based on skills required, not on salary levels, and work both ways - exporting as well as importing key skills;

Funders should consider the benefit of allocating small grants to cover translating training resources and other outputs where appropriate;

The British Council, Historic England, Heritage Lottery Fund and the Foreign Office should consider where and how heritage and heritage ngos can be a positive resource, integral to their international work; and

The Heritage Alliance to work with DCMS to better track the impact and potential of the independent heritage sector internationally.

You can read the report in full here. Case studies
The report contains case studies on the international work of the independent heritage sector:

World Monuments Fund Britain: Accessing Cultural Protection Fund funding to work in the Middle East

UK Antarctic Heritage Trust: Caring for a whole continent

Venice in Peril Fund: Patience and persistence

The Institute of Conservation: Cultural Exchange Tour to China

The Ragged School Museum: Japanese interest in UK C19th social child care

Chelsea Physic Garden: A historic seed exchange initiative still bearing fruit

The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings: A world-renowned scholarship programme

Historic Transport Bodies: International leadership

The Chartered Institute for Archaeologists: Working globally for professional standards

Historic Houses: Universal challenges for private owners

International National Trusts Organisation: Supporting existing and emerging trusts

Notes to editors:

1. Heritage Counts, Heritage and the Economy 2017: https://content.historicengland.org.uk/content/heritage-counts/pub/2017/heritage-and-the-economy-2017.pdf

2. The Heritage Statement, DCMS December 2017: 'We will work with Historic England and other partners to encourage and support public, private and voluntary sector heritage organisations to work internationally and create international partnerships and to increase their capacity to do so' https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-heritage-statement-2017

3. The report, initiated by The Heritage Alliance through a survey of its members in 2017, was completed by Kate Pugh.

4. The Heritage Alliance gratefully acknowledges sponsorship of production costs by the Scottish Confucius Institute for Business & Communication at Heriot-Watt University.

5. The Heritage Alliance unites well over 100 independent heritage organisations in England as a powerful, effective and independent advocate for heritage. As England's biggest coalition of heritage interests it brings together independent heritage organisations from the National Trust, English Heritage, Canal & River Trust and Historic Houses Association, to more specialist bodies representing visitors, owners, volunteers, professional practitioners, funders and educationalists. Its members' 7 million volunteers, trustees, members and staff demonstrate the strength and commitment of the independent heritage movement. Visit: theheritagealliance.org.uk/ @Heritage_NGOs

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Heritage Alliance publishes first ever international report

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The Heritage Alliance has published the first ever report on the independent heritage sector's impact overseas. The report, sponsored by the Scottish Confucius Institute for Business & Communication at Heriot-Watt University, makes recommendations for building on the success of the overall sector which already generates £21.7 billion a year.