ACE to fund the sharing of knowledge
Arts council's Resilience Fund has allocated £1m to subject specialist networks. By Patrick Steel
The decline of curatorial expertise has been of growing concern in recent years, as budget cuts continue to bite and curators lose their jobs.
But the recent announcement that subject specialist networks (SSNs), which provide a focus for expertise and collections knowledge, will get money via Arts Council England’s (ACE) Resilience Fund might provide some relief.
ACE’s £10m-a-year Resilience Fund, which closed for applications last month, includes £1m for subject specialist networks in 2015-18 – twice the amount available for 2012-15.
The increase reflects ACE’s recognition that networks are going to become more important, says John Orna-Ornstein, ACE’s director of museums.
SSNs have had a patchy history, but ACE recognises 40 networks. These range from constituted charities with a subscription model, hundreds of members and a website, to an altruistic museum curator with an email address and a lot of patience.
The lesson from the now defunct Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), says Sally Colvin, the Museums Association’s (MA) collections coordinator, is that an over-centralised approach does not work.
There was a feeling under the MLA that some networks adapted simply to get funding, although it was not necessarily the most appropriate strategy.
She adds that because the makeup of the networks is so diverse, the challenge for the arts council is to allow a varied approach that appreciates the needs of each specialism.
There is no question that ACE is pushing one specialism over another, according to Orna-Ornstein. He says the arts council’s role is to set overall priorities, and it has been having conversations about how best to achieve these, but SSNs should emanate from the sector and serve its needs.
The £1m pot will not be ringfenced, so the total awarded could be slightly more or less, depending on the applications.
Orna-Ornstein says the idea is to encourage applications from long-established networks, but also new ones and those that are not necessarily subject specialist, such as a museums and health network, or a network looking at commercial activities for museums.
As the funding criteria are becoming more broad, some SSNs have adapted to the changing landscape by becoming less specialist.
Michelle Lees, the chairwoman of the Social History Curators Group, says that as funding pressures have forced museums to cut back, there are fewer roles with “social history curator” in the job title. With fewer specialists, she says, networks have to be smarter about who they work with as their constituencies change.
Some SSNs are very active. Helen Walsh, who runs the Contemporary Studio Ceramics SSN, which has gained 140 members since it was set up in 2012, has submitted a bid for £75,000 to fund an annual conference, a website, two annual symposiums and an annual practical workshop.
SSNs are having to work harder to maintain their profile. In years gone by, museums urged staff to join SSNs, but now there does not seem to be the same buy-in from organisations.
In March, when the awards are announced, ACE and SSNs across England hope the fund will put networks back in the spotlight.
Many ACE-funded SSNs are helpful to specialists in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but there are other sources of funding available across the UK.
Alongside the dedicated museum bodies for the home nations, the MA-run Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund (EFCF) supports UK-wide subject specialist work.
The fund is working with the Welsh museums federation to finance natural science curators, supporting small museums that have natural science collections but no specialist curators.
The EFCF is also working with National Museums Scotland to support a curator to work with small museums around the country that have Pacific collections but lack curatorial expertise in this area.
But the recent announcement that subject specialist networks (SSNs), which provide a focus for expertise and collections knowledge, will get money via Arts Council England’s (ACE) Resilience Fund might provide some relief.
ACE’s £10m-a-year Resilience Fund, which closed for applications last month, includes £1m for subject specialist networks in 2015-18 – twice the amount available for 2012-15.
The increase reflects ACE’s recognition that networks are going to become more important, says John Orna-Ornstein, ACE’s director of museums.
SSNs have had a patchy history, but ACE recognises 40 networks. These range from constituted charities with a subscription model, hundreds of members and a website, to an altruistic museum curator with an email address and a lot of patience.
The lesson from the now defunct Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), says Sally Colvin, the Museums Association’s (MA) collections coordinator, is that an over-centralised approach does not work.
There was a feeling under the MLA that some networks adapted simply to get funding, although it was not necessarily the most appropriate strategy.
She adds that because the makeup of the networks is so diverse, the challenge for the arts council is to allow a varied approach that appreciates the needs of each specialism.
There is no question that ACE is pushing one specialism over another, according to Orna-Ornstein. He says the arts council’s role is to set overall priorities, and it has been having conversations about how best to achieve these, but SSNs should emanate from the sector and serve its needs.
The £1m pot will not be ringfenced, so the total awarded could be slightly more or less, depending on the applications.
Orna-Ornstein says the idea is to encourage applications from long-established networks, but also new ones and those that are not necessarily subject specialist, such as a museums and health network, or a network looking at commercial activities for museums.
As the funding criteria are becoming more broad, some SSNs have adapted to the changing landscape by becoming less specialist.
Michelle Lees, the chairwoman of the Social History Curators Group, says that as funding pressures have forced museums to cut back, there are fewer roles with “social history curator” in the job title. With fewer specialists, she says, networks have to be smarter about who they work with as their constituencies change.
Some SSNs are very active. Helen Walsh, who runs the Contemporary Studio Ceramics SSN, which has gained 140 members since it was set up in 2012, has submitted a bid for £75,000 to fund an annual conference, a website, two annual symposiums and an annual practical workshop.
SSNs are having to work harder to maintain their profile. In years gone by, museums urged staff to join SSNs, but now there does not seem to be the same buy-in from organisations.
In March, when the awards are announced, ACE and SSNs across England hope the fund will put networks back in the spotlight.
Specialist delivery
Many ACE-funded SSNs are helpful to specialists in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but there are other sources of funding available across the UK.
Alongside the dedicated museum bodies for the home nations, the MA-run Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund (EFCF) supports UK-wide subject specialist work.
The fund is working with the Welsh museums federation to finance natural science curators, supporting small museums that have natural science collections but no specialist curators.
The EFCF is also working with National Museums Scotland to support a curator to work with small museums around the country that have Pacific collections but lack curatorial expertise in this area.