This Diversifying the Museum Voice case study follows the pilot phase of the University of Cambridge Museums (UCM) Community Panel. It provides an example of one approach to putting the Diversifying the Museum Voice Principles framework into action.

About the University of Cambridge Museums consortium (UCM)

 Together, the eight University of Cambridge Museums and Botanic Garden represent the UK’s highest concentration of internationally important collections outside London. With more than five million works of art, artefacts, and specimens, the collections have supported nearly 300 years of investigation into the world around us. Bringing the Museums together is a dedicated team who support and enable the consortium to realise individual and collective ambitions.

The Community Panel

The pilot phase of the UCM Community Panel aims to test a process to enable dialogue between the UCM and individuals from the community, bringing local voices and perspectives to the work we do as a consortium, and challenging our group ways of thinking and working. The motivation behind the initiative is to move beyond project activity with community groups/stakeholders and form reciprocal relationships that ultimately will lead the way in the Museums meeting their ambitions to be relevant places shaped by and for the enjoyment of all.

What’s happened so far

  • Panel remit established focusing on the creation of a space for managed, purposeful dialogue.
  • Membership scoped with UCM colleagues who shared community, local interest and City Council partnerships, from this an inclusive, wide-ranging Panel has been formed.
  • Initial sessions held; shared terms of reference have been co-produced.
  • Sessions now embedded and working as part of the UCM core remit
  • Outcomes, evaluation and learning and direct feedback from the panellists have been identified and are taking place.

The UCM Team led on a museum-wide community mapping exercise in 2019 designed to give a snapshot of who was engaging or partnering with whom, how, why and about what. This provided a breadth of profiles from which the Community Panel membership could be drawn. Responding to the University and wider societal drive to extend inclusion, the UCM Team undertook research across and beyond the sector to explore how and to what effect-others were working, through strategic consultation approaches, to achieve just this. The Community Panel remit and format were devised in response to this, along with new processes for the consortium, including the payment of panel members to recognise their expertise and the contribution being made.

At the point of writing this case study, sessions have been online with the intention to hold in person sessions in the future, when safe to do so, they are two hours long, take place every six weeks and will do so in total for the thirteen-month pilot period. Each meeting has a different theme and focus, the second one being the production of the shared terms of reference.

The UCM project team are using reflective journaling techniques to check-in with themselves, capture their experiences and reflect on what has worked well, not so well and what opportunities for development are emerging. They have also received some robust feedback from the panellists, who, so far, are very committed to the project.

 ‘We’re so grateful to all our panellists for joining us on this pilot stage. They will be instrumental in setting up the guidelines and boundaries for the entire year… It is hoped that we can build on this to develop a longer-term Community Panel with the original members acting as mentors and ambassadors… Watch this space!’

Niki Hughes, UCM Opening Doors Project Coordinator

 

What difference is the Panel making?

It’s important to note, at the point of writing this case study (August 2021), the Pilot Panel was in its very early stages. The difference being sought is very much about the Museums extending their relevance to new and different audiences through finding authentic and sustainable ways to bridge their academic and public facing roles, building regular consultation into their practice. Seeing themselves as learning organisations, in a wider sense, receptive to the influence of others, where the personal, lived experience has value alongside the academic is at the heart of this change; achieving this is no mean feat with the world leading reputation of the University and the value of this framing any and all change.

Using the Diversifying the Museum Voice Principles to plan, do and review

Devised through a process of action learning with teams across the consortium, these six interconnecting principles provide a flexible framework for teams to plan, manage and review collaborative activity, providing ideas and provocations that support people in coming together to discuss, participate in dialogue and make change.

Which Principles are important to the project? How and why?

Diversify Relationships

At the heart of this work is the ambition to have relationships that move from transactional to collaborative in nature. Initial conversations with the Panel about what this can mean for them have focused on notions of relevance and influence with questions such as: how can the UCM be influenced?  What do we really mean by the go-to expression ‘relevant’ – relevance to whom? And can curiosity in a museum object or exhibition be sparked by someone for whom there is no relevance?

Pursue Authenticity

The project team anticipate that authenticity, in the offer being made here by the UCM, may only start to be felt once activity takes place in response to panel recommendation and thinking. As such careful timing and framing of invitations to contribute are needed for traction to be felt.

Commit to Dialogue

What is emerging here is the need to be realistic about when dialogue can take place and the capacity the panellists have to engage beyond facilitated sessions. The team are aware that the sessions are absorbing and provoke thoughts, but afterwards, the pressures and competing demands of day jobs make any follow-up dialogue difficult. As such the UCM project team need to make the two-hour session they have with the panellists work very hard.

Measure what Matters

Here a combination of personal reflections, feedback from the Panel and the museums impacted upon is being sought. For the team facilitating, feeling their way to ensuring that they are conduits to rather than the keepers-of the UCM is important, specifically in ensuring their resilience in the face of discord and disagreement but also managing expectations on what change can happen as a result of the panel discussions, and how quickly that change can come. The reflective journal is an approach being tested here to help take note of both the personal and professional. Baseline questions for the panel are to be asked at the beginning, approximately one third of the way into the pilot and at the end. The Museum Directors will be sent feedback from the panel sessions regularly, and this feedback will also be shared across the UCM.

Top tips for peers and colleagues

  • Take time setting up the intentions, approach and content of consultative working making sure that these are clear and shared with all stakeholders.
  • Plan for some quick wins in the early stages of a shared authorship project to help in showing that you mean business, and that change can come as a result of the panel sessions.
  • Ask how those holding consultative relationships are being supported by the wider organisation; is it enough? Know that the work is not yours alone, the relationship is between organisations not individuals – even though it may seem that way at times.
  • Frameworks such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs or the group development stage model forming, norming, storming and performing are helpful in providing points of reference to understand what people’s individual needs are in order to participate and then the different stages that groups can go through in order to function.

You can find more resources and case studies on the Diversifying the Museum Voice main page.