The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has just announced that 20 museums, galleries and heritage organisations in England have been awarded £60 million to ensure nationally important museum collections and heritage assets are protected for future generations.
The funding, which has been awarded to organisations including the V&A, The Natural History Museum and the British Library has supported 100 projects for essential maintenance works delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. It will help projects that were stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic reach completion to allow institutions to welcome back visitors this summer.
It will increase accessibility at national tourist attractions including the Royal Armouries in Leeds and the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford. The funding will also help organisations meet net-zero targets by supporting energy efficiency projects at The Royal Armouries, providing grants for electric boilers at the Imperial War Museum Duxford in Cambridgeshire, and upgrading insulation at Tate Liverpool.
This £60 million investment builds on the almost £2 billion invested in the arts, heritage and cultural sectors through the Culture Recovery Fund, which has supported more than 5,000 organisations through the pandemic.
The full list of recipients is:
o The British Museum – £9,800,000.
o Natural History Museum – £7,605,000.
o Science Museum Group – £6,171,000.
o V&A – £5,788,000.
o TATE – £5,042,000.
o Imperial War Museums – £3,850,000.
o National Museums Liverpool – £3,800,000.
o Historic Royal Palaces – £3,560,000.
o National Portrait Gallery – £2,968,810.
o The Royal Parks – £2,255,000.
o Royal Museums Greenwich – £1,775,000.
o British Library – £1,301,249.
o Royal Armouries – £1,138,000.
o British Film Institute – £1,075,000.
o National Coal Mining Museum – £1,000,000.
o Wallace Collection – £575,000.
o Horniman Museum and Gardens – £510,000.
o National Gallery – £437,000.
o Sir John Soane Museum – £242,000, and the
o Museum of the Home – £175,000.
The full DCMS press release is available on the GOV.UK website.
Image: the Museum of the Home, based in East London, whose purpose is to “reveal and rethink the ways we live, in order to live better together”, was awarded a grant of £175,000 by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.