The Eurostar train leaving Waterloo at 10.43 on 28 February will provide the last opportunity for British museum directors to hand deliver their application for the new European Union (EU) Culture 2007 grant round.
With 50 per cent funding for projects on offer, one might expect to see the British joining their European counterparts in the queue outside the culture ministry in Brussels, but previous experience suggests they will not.
Looking back at the awards made over the past few years of the outgoing Culture 2000 programme, there is a dearth of British museums appearing as either leaders or foot soldiers in the projects carried out. Why is this the case when museums in other European countries seem happy to participate?
One reason seems to be that they simply don't apply, at least not in great numbers. Why not is a mystery. It seems that international working and the benefits it can bring to British communities is not on the road map for many of our museums.
A survey by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) in 2003 found that only about half of the 2,500 museums in Britain had ever had any engagement with anything that could be described as an international project.
The MLA's leadership of the sector on this issue also shows questionable interest and commitment. Although some very good work has been done, its international strategy expired nine months ago, with as yet no sign of a replacement to show how or what it might lead the sector to in the future. Regional bodies and the new hubs offer little more than a nod in the direction of international working.
Another reason for non-participation may be the perception that you need to be a national, or a big museum, to participate in an international project. However, this is not borne out by the evidence. Participants are sometimes quite small.
Radstock Museum, in Somerset, is volunteer-run and has fewer than 10,000 visitors a year, but still managed to participate in a one-year project on aspects of mining in Europe in 2005.
Although size is not important, a willingness to work in partnership with others is. Like all grant givers, the EU has its own agenda, and sees action in the cultural field as a way of promoting international understanding.
Consequently, the requirement for a minimum number of three cooperating partners from different countries favours museums with contacts and staff who can speak at least one foreign language, although many partnerships now use English as their working language.
In reality, partnerships often include more than the minimum number. The Roman Baths Museum has just led a project with seven partners, which offered added value to the EU over three-sided arrangements. A year ago it participated in the construction of a network that involved ten.
Few museums have that many established contacts, but help is at hand. Euclid is the UK contact point for EU cultural projects and can point out partner search lists and sites. It offers help and advice, and can even read through applications.
For some museums, particularly local authority ones working to a cultural diversity agenda in areas with large migrant communities, Europe may be too close to home, as the natural cultural affinities of their migrant communities may be in south Asia, the Far East or elsewhere in the Commonwealth.
The recent liberalisation of work and travel in Europe, however, may soon be challenging the dominance of established migrant communities, as new groups from eastern Europe settle and present their own challenge to museums.
Against this background, the EU Culture programme is also changing. In some ways, it is trying to do less than before. Countries are anxious to preserve their national identities within the expanding European framework and are wary of EU action in the cultural sphere.
The new Culture 2007 programme will run until 2013. As well as fostering international understanding the scheme encourages appreciation of cultural diversity. Objectives are couched in broad non-prescriptive terms such as transnational circulation of works of art, inter-cultural dialogue and transnational circulation of people working in the cultural sphere.
Projects may be more sustainable than hitherto, with the project mix likely to include more schemes of between two and thee years and fewer one-year projects, countering the frustration felt by many partners that projects end too soon.
If you are tired of the politically correct formulae built into British grant schemes either by the government or through its proxies - the lottery funds - and just want to do something creative, then an EU project could be for you.
You can't draw the strings too tightly when creating a framework designed to work across the differing legislative scenarios and cultural attitudes of 27 countries, so conditions attached to an EU grant can be far less prescriptive than a British one. Rail tickets to Brussels can be purchased at www.eurostar.com
Stephen Clews is the manager of the Roman Baths Museum in Bath and a trustee of Radstock Museum
With 50 per cent funding for projects on offer, one might expect to see the British joining their European counterparts in the queue outside the culture ministry in Brussels, but previous experience suggests they will not.
Looking back at the awards made over the past few years of the outgoing Culture 2000 programme, there is a dearth of British museums appearing as either leaders or foot soldiers in the projects carried out. Why is this the case when museums in other European countries seem happy to participate?
One reason seems to be that they simply don't apply, at least not in great numbers. Why not is a mystery. It seems that international working and the benefits it can bring to British communities is not on the road map for many of our museums.
A survey by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) in 2003 found that only about half of the 2,500 museums in Britain had ever had any engagement with anything that could be described as an international project.
The MLA's leadership of the sector on this issue also shows questionable interest and commitment. Although some very good work has been done, its international strategy expired nine months ago, with as yet no sign of a replacement to show how or what it might lead the sector to in the future. Regional bodies and the new hubs offer little more than a nod in the direction of international working.
Another reason for non-participation may be the perception that you need to be a national, or a big museum, to participate in an international project. However, this is not borne out by the evidence. Participants are sometimes quite small.
Radstock Museum, in Somerset, is volunteer-run and has fewer than 10,000 visitors a year, but still managed to participate in a one-year project on aspects of mining in Europe in 2005.
Although size is not important, a willingness to work in partnership with others is. Like all grant givers, the EU has its own agenda, and sees action in the cultural field as a way of promoting international understanding.
Consequently, the requirement for a minimum number of three cooperating partners from different countries favours museums with contacts and staff who can speak at least one foreign language, although many partnerships now use English as their working language.
In reality, partnerships often include more than the minimum number. The Roman Baths Museum has just led a project with seven partners, which offered added value to the EU over three-sided arrangements. A year ago it participated in the construction of a network that involved ten.
Few museums have that many established contacts, but help is at hand. Euclid is the UK contact point for EU cultural projects and can point out partner search lists and sites. It offers help and advice, and can even read through applications.
For some museums, particularly local authority ones working to a cultural diversity agenda in areas with large migrant communities, Europe may be too close to home, as the natural cultural affinities of their migrant communities may be in south Asia, the Far East or elsewhere in the Commonwealth.
The recent liberalisation of work and travel in Europe, however, may soon be challenging the dominance of established migrant communities, as new groups from eastern Europe settle and present their own challenge to museums.
Against this background, the EU Culture programme is also changing. In some ways, it is trying to do less than before. Countries are anxious to preserve their national identities within the expanding European framework and are wary of EU action in the cultural sphere.
The new Culture 2007 programme will run until 2013. As well as fostering international understanding the scheme encourages appreciation of cultural diversity. Objectives are couched in broad non-prescriptive terms such as transnational circulation of works of art, inter-cultural dialogue and transnational circulation of people working in the cultural sphere.
Projects may be more sustainable than hitherto, with the project mix likely to include more schemes of between two and thee years and fewer one-year projects, countering the frustration felt by many partners that projects end too soon.
If you are tired of the politically correct formulae built into British grant schemes either by the government or through its proxies - the lottery funds - and just want to do something creative, then an EU project could be for you.
You can't draw the strings too tightly when creating a framework designed to work across the differing legislative scenarios and cultural attitudes of 27 countries, so conditions attached to an EU grant can be far less prescriptive than a British one. Rail tickets to Brussels can be purchased at www.eurostar.com
Stephen Clews is the manager of the Roman Baths Museum in Bath and a trustee of Radstock Museum
