Engagement with heritage can have a hugely positive impact on our physical, social and mental wellbeing. Based on their learning and experience during their successful project ‘Lost and Found’,  Wessex Archaeology have created a guide to help you prepare and deliver a digital heritage wellbeing project.

In this Digital Heritage Lab webinar recording Annie Andoh provides an introduction to the essentials of developing a social media strategy — how to plan and create content that will help your organisation flourish on various social media platforms. With case studies for inspiration, Annie explains the strengths of the main platforms — Facebook, Twitter ... Read more

This webinar recording is one of four Digital Heritage Lab webinars that took place in April and May 2020 to provide free support to small and medium sized heritage organisations during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this webinar Chris Unitt give tips and tactics on how to develop your online engagement more broadly, and looks at ... Read more

In this series of learning case studies, cultural practitioners share their reflections and learning honestly, so others can learn from and build on their experience. Here Clare Williams reflects on managing multiple agendas and questions of ownership in complex large-scale projects.  

This report by Josephine Burns based on documents and data analysis by Morris Hargreaves McIntyre, summarises 14-18 NOW’s five-year programme and tells the story of a unique undertaking that brought together art and heritage with a vision ‘to support the creation of artworks by contemporary artists, to engage and stimulate the UK public in fresh and engaging ... Read more

This Field Guide is the final output of The Future Of Cultural Heritage: a year-long collaborative innovation process convened by the New Citizenship Project, working with a cohort of twelve individuals from six organisations across the sector.

A framework that brings together the key characteristics of best practice and describes the set of behaviours that make heritage organisations prosper and thrive.

At the Eden Project they ‘flex’ the product to meet their various visitor profile needs. They take risks with this policy of flexing the product and inventing new things. Andy Jasper from the Eden Project gave a keynote presentation exploring this policy and how they evaluate and make decisions based on that.

Since 2000 the use of the social web has increased very rapidly in cultural heritage organisations. This report summarises the barriers which have been identified in exploiting its potential and then focuses on the opportunities for social networking and community participation online. It includes examples of how the web can be used to provide or ... Read more

Heritage retailing has come a long way in the past few years as museums and galleries rely more heavily on their commercial income streams to bolster budgets. In this article, Michael Richards explores the different marketing methods that can be used to drive traffic to the museum and gallery shop and increase overall profitability, whilst ... Read more

This article looks at how cultural centres can engage those who are unlikely to visit their venue in person. Using digital tools, arts and cultural organisations can go ‘beyond the locative experience’ in profound ways. Focusing in particular on the website, the author examines how to overcome geographical marginalisation and building national and international audiences ... Read more

Demonstrating the economic impact of culture has become increasingly more important. This study examines how culture is an integral part of the whole economic renaissance strategy to enhance growth and wealth across the northwest. You’ll find facts and figures along with supporting case studies to demonstrate the impact of the creative industries, regeneration, arts, museums, ... Read more

This document brings together a vast body of research and experience to demonstrate how research can develop museums’ and galleries’ ambitions, vision, models and methodologies to enable a much more meaningful measure of impact and value.

This paper provides a short overview of the HLF-funded Pre-Raphaelite Experiment, where Manchester Art Gallery trialled new ways of engaging audiences with historic collections through user-generated interpretation. The year-long programme brought families, community groups, schools and volunteers together to re-evaluate one of the city’s highly valued but potentially insufficiently-understood cultural assets. In a significant departure ... Read more

What are the key drivers for participation in with heritage sites? How frequently do people engage with the museums and galleries through participation?  How can libraries deepen relationships with participants?  This analysis of findings across these four important strands of the cultural landscape offers key findings, core data and modelling to help you plan your ... Read more

In this Heritage Lottery Fund annual research review, key information from a range of external relevant research reports is presented. Structured around the values and benefits of heritage, you’ll find topics such as public attitude towards heritage, quality of experience, and social and economic impact.  

This advocacy material demonstrates the impact of heritage on cultural tourism in the northwest of England. You’ll find key statistics including economic impact, demographics of cultural tourists, and how heritage impacts on the length of stay.

The Heritage Tourism Programme was hosted by Culture Northwest on behalf of the Northwest Regional Development Agency and English Heritage. This is an evaluation of the project at the end of its three year term which identifies its outputs and outcomes, demonstrates whether measures of success have been met, and makes recommendations for the future. In ... Read more

Museums are now playing a role in community development and are increasingly becoming a catalyst for regeneration. They have become places that bring together different community groups, develop skills and address social issues. Somewhere the community can have a voice through collections relevant to them. This document brings together research from the likes of Morris ... Read more

This article provides an overview of how Museums play a crucial role in the success of UK tourism by attracting millions of international and domestic visitors. The figures bring together key data from multiple sources such as the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, Visit Britain, Deloitte and the Heritage Lottery Fund.