The winners of this year’s Museums Change Lives Awards were announced today in a ceremony as part of the Museums Association’s (MA) 2025 Conference at the St Fagans National Museum of History in Cardiff.  

Now in their eighth year, the Museums Change Lives Awards celebrate outstanding work by UK museums making a positive difference to people’s lives.   

Awards were given to museums and individuals across four categories:   

  • Birmingham Museums Trust won the Best Museums Change Lives Project Award for “Citizens’ Jury”, an initiative giving power to the people of the city to answer the question: “What does Birmingham need and want from its museums, now and in the future; and what should Birmingham Museums Trust do to make these things happen?” It brought together a diverse group, matched to Birmingham’s demographics, giving them tools to collaborate, with genuine power to shape the trust’s future.  
  • Timespan (Helmsdale Heritage and Arts Society) won the Best Small Museum Project Award for “The People’s Mobile Archive”, an outreach programme tackling rural isolation, health inequalities and cultural exclusion in East Sutherland in the Scottish Highlands. The project brings collections, digital tools and creative resources to marginalised groups – older people, carers, refugee families, those with mobility or mental health challenges – through home visits, activity packs and low-barrier public programmes.  
  • Horniman Museum and Gardens with partners, creatives and young people won the Equitable Partnership Award for their work on “The Great Kingdom of Benin”. Following the return of ownership in 2022 of 72 looted belongings from the Benin Kingdom, the Horniman worked together with communities on updating the museum’s permanent display. This approach is part of a long-term commitment to working with, rather than for, communities. The project was guided throughout by six Nigerian and Nigerian-diaspora community members as co-curators.  
  • Elizabeth Scott, head of Guildhall Art Gallery, won the Radical Changemaker Award for making social impact a focus of her career through leading by example, from programming and collections to audiences and the workforce. Her leadership of Guildhall Art Gallery’s Revealing the City’s Past project, reinterpreting two controversial statues of slave-traders William Beckford and John Cass, is a recent example of her collaborative and inclusive style as she designed the project to amplify the voices of those most affected by Beckford and Cass’s legacies today. 

“Congratulations to the four winners who are all doing exceptional work to bring communities together and make a difference to people’s lives,”  said Steve Miller, president of the MA.

“I am truly inspired by the innovative work museums across the UK are doing to be a force for good in tackling many of the most pressing challenges of our time.”  

Sharon Heal, director of the MA, said: “Museums and their communities across the UK are helping to create a positive and lasting difference. The winning projects and individuals all demonstrate the value of museums to society and make a strong case for the importance of public investment in our museums.”