Museums, Galleries and Collections Fund

The Museum, Galleries and Collections Fund supports museums and galleries in the higher education (HE) sector where the cost of stewardship goes beyond what universities could be expected to meet from mainstream funding for teaching and research. It supports collections that have research significance beyond their home institutions. The fund was previously managed for HEFCE by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

Review of HEFCE funding for museums and galleries

We have recently completed a review of HEFCE funding for university museums and galleries, led by Sir Muir Russell.

Higher education institutions wishing to be considered for funding were invited to make written submissions. The review considered how far the activities of the museums and galleries met core HEFCE policy aims and are activities of a kind that HEFCE funding should support. Three main criteria were developed to support this consideration:

  • provision of a service to the wider research community at significant cost beyond what is needed to meet the needs of an institution's own researchers
  • provision of a high-quality teaching and learning experience to the wider HE community
  • addressing HEFCE's widening participation objective to promote and provide the opportunity of successful higher education to everyone who can benefit from it.

Funding allocations for university museums and galleries for 2011-12

Sector impact assessment of the fund

In developing funding streams for museums and galleries we have assessed its impact on the higher education sector in terms of regulatory burden, equality and diversity, sustainable development and privacy.

Sector impact assessment of funding for museums and galleries

[ Download Sector impact assessment of funding for museums and galleries as Adobe PDF 47K | Download Sector impact assessment of funding for museums and galleries as MS Word 50K ]

Further information

For more information about the fund and its review, please contact Vicky Jones, MandG@hefce.ac.uk.

Last updated 7 April 2011