Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Bursaries

Thanks to funding from Arts Council England and with support from Art Fund, MD North can offer CPD bursaries for individuals, organisations and networks in the North of England that represent or work with Accredited museums and museums officially Working Towards Accreditation.

This grant scheme is being made available to support the museum sector to retain and train its workforce.

Eligibility

The CPD Bursary is open to:

Individuals (including volunteers and freelancers) who work in and with museums in the North of England.

Organisations operating museums that are:

• Accredited with Arts Council England or
• Working Towards Accreditation with Arts Council England and
• Located in the North of England

The CPD Bursary is not open to individuals or organisations where the museum:

• receives funding from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) as National Museums

Priorities of the Scheme

Applications for funding must support one of three key aims:

1. Develop the use of collections in new ways
2. Support audience development and increase engagement with under-represented audiences
3. Volunteer and workforce development including:

• Staff and volunteer retention and training.
• Support for activity to ensure museums can keep curatorial and other collection-centred roles (including collection care, learning and engagement).
• Support for in-house training and places on training courses and conferences.
• Wellbeing offers for staff and volunteers.
• Bespoke personal development opportunities to upskill collection and curatorial staff.
• Support for new and existing museum networks and partnerships for skills sharing and development of the workforce.

Additional consideration will be given to applications from:

• museums with fewer than 50,000 visitors per year seeking to reconnect with visitors or reimagine their future as vital community spaces.
• museums in areas of low cultural community engagement, where the museum is the main cultural offer in a locality.
• museums in urban areas that have niche collections and specific cultural offers outside the larger city institutions.

Funding Available

Grants of up to £500 are available for individual activity.

Museums, museum networks and partnerships can apply for up to £2,000 for activity benefiting more than one participant.

Higher awards will be made for applications benefiting more than one individual, or where higher costs are essential to the project, e.g. international CPD opportunities.

In addition to paying for development opportunities, such as training and conference places, bursaries can also cover costs for travel, accommodation and subsistence:

The bursary cannot be used to cover core staff salary costs but can be used to backfill staff undertaking CPD activity.

Please download and read the full guidance before applying.  A Word copy of the application form can be found here.  This is to prepare your application only, please apply via the online form.  If you would like support completing your online application please contact Sue, sue.hughes@museumdevelopmentnorth.org.uk.

The online application form can be accessed here