Major research project to explore inequalities in museum attendance

The Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG) at the University of Leicester has received a research grant by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to explore how museums can engage with, and benefit, a wider proportion of society.

The Addressing the Museum Attendance and Benefit Gap project will run in partnership with a range of organisations, including Birmingham Museums Trust, the University of Birmingham and University College London.

Combining expertise across museum studies, sociology, implementation science and leading museum practice, the research team will examine how museums can address inequalities amongst their visitors, and in turn contribute to society more effectively.

The project will pay particular attention to the practical implications of the fact that educational attainment, particularly from degree level onwards, is the most significant predictor of museum visiting.

The most recent Participation Survey, a social survey that was published annually by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) until earlier this year, revealed a 28% difference in adult museum engagement between those working in higher managerial, administrative and professional occupations (52%) and those who have never worked or are in long-term unemployment (24%).

Similarly, 49% of adults from the least deprived areas of the UK said that they engaged with museums compared to 30% of adults from the most deprived areas.

The AHRC funding will be used to conduct a major survey of “what works” in museums’ audience engagement approaches. The research team will test and evaluate new innovations in public programming in situ at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

The RCMG team will also collaborate with Museums Association, English Heritage, National Museums Liverpool, National Museums NI, Paisley Museum, National Trust, Art Fund, the National Portrait Gallery and DCMS to embed the research findings within sector-wide practice during the final year of the project.

A key output from the project will be a new Research and Implementation Framework supporting museums to “work in ways that close the attendance and benefit gap and further the role of culture in nurturing reflective individuals and engaged citizens”.

“We know that museums can enrich people’s lives, enhance their wellbeing and create the social cohesion needed in our fragmented and polarised society,” said the project's co-lead Mark O’Neill, who was previously the head of Glasgow Museums.

“We can only realise this potential if we attract audiences that are representative of our communities. This research will generate the breakthrough knowledge about ‘what works’ in creating genuinely inclusive museums.”

Sara Wajid, the co-CEO of Birmingham Museums Trust, said: “Over the next four years, we will be working as part of the Addressing the Attendance and Benefit Gap project to build a detailed understanding of how we can ensure that we prioritise projects and innovate in ways that drive fundamental changes in our visitor demographics.

“As far as I know there is no other research project which has so much potential to transform museums’ capacity to contribute to a culturally richer, more democratic and less polarised society.”

Project lead Suzanne MacLeod, from the University of Leicester School of Heritage and Culture, said: “We need new levels of research rigour and strategic analysis to understand and address population-level inequalities in attendance.

“Asking how change management insights from the health sciences might be adapted in the cultural sector so that museums can use their research resources to really understand and remain focused on what it takes to shape a democratic, public museum has great potential.

“The Research Centre for Museums and Galleries and Birmingham Museums Trust are ideally placed to lead this research for the sector.”