Research undertaken by the UMG has demonstrated the continuing importance of university museums in caring for and making accessible collections of national and international significance. The research relates to those museums currently supported by the HEFCE Museums, Galleries and Collections Fund.
Key points from the research include:
- HEFCE-funded university museums care for, and make accessible, a great wealth of collections of national and international significance. They comprise 2.3% of all Accredited museums in England, but 24% of museum collections that are Designated as being of national and international significance. In essence, they constitute a distributed collection of equivalent quality to national museums
- In 2014-15, the £10.5m of HEFCE Museums, Galleries & Collections funding enabled 30 university museums and galleries in England to leverage a total of £42.5m of funding from other external sources (trusts, foundations, research councils, commercial income, philanthropy and donations)
- In addition, the HEFCE funding leveraged £13.5m of direct support from host universities, giving a total value of £56m of leveraged support at a ratio of over 5:1 to HEFCE funding
- During the course of academic year 2014-15, this enabled HEFCE-funded university museums to engage with:
4.5 million visitors
207,000 school students
37,000 university students
16,000 further education students
And, in addition:
Hold 222 exhibitions and 4,120 public events
Make available 515 national and 141 international loans of 7,938 museum objects
