- UKRI/Research England Higher Education Museums, Galleries and Collections Fund (HEMG) awards University of Oxford’s museums £4,091,421 per year for five years, totalling £20,457,105
- Recipients are Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, History of Science Museum, Museum of Natural History, and Pitt Rivers Museum
- Funding will support museums’ contribution to higher education and the UK research infrastructure
The University of Oxford is delighted to announce that its four museums have been awarded £4,091,421 per year for five years by the UKRI/Research England Museums, Galleries and Collections Fund (HEMG). Together, Oxford’s museums have been allocated funding which recognises the significant contribution Oxford’s museums and collections make to higher education and research.
The scale, quality and activity of Oxford’s museums make them a significant component of the national and global research infrastructure. Oxford’s university museums care for roughly 8.5 million objects, specimens and works of art. Half of all visitors and half of all school visits to UK university museums are to Oxford’s museums.
In common with the other university museums supported by this fund, Oxford’s museums support interdisciplinary, and inter-institutional research and teaching. The museums’ research activities are wide-ranging and engage the public, students and scholars from all over the world. This funding will allow the museums to support research by providing content to higher education courses; digitising the collections and making them available to the widest possible audiences; programming innovative exhibitions and public events with new research content; and hosting undergraduate, masters, doctoral students and researchers from other universities and higher education providers.
Richard Ovenden, Head of Oxford University’s Gardens, Libraries and Museums, says: ‘Oxford University’s museums are world-renowned for their outstanding collections, and we are delighted that the work that these institutions do to support UK researchers through their collections, projects and expertise of staff has been recognised with significant funding. This will help extend the role that we play as critical infrastructure for the UK’s vital and world-leading research sector.’
