Museums & Research: Resilience & Insights

Home / Job vacancies / Invitation to Tender – Museums and Money research project – AIM

Salary: £232,600 inclusive of VAT

Hours:

September 2026 - Autumn 2027

Location:

AIM

With new funding provided by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Arts Council England and the Association of Independent Museums (AIM) are commissioning a major new research project looking at museum finances over the last fifteen years and what this tells us about sector resilience.

Researchers will carry out a programme of data review and analysis, quantitative and qualitative research, and museum and policy consultation and engagement, synthesising this into a powerful report with policy recommendations with the potential to help shape sector and funding priorities for the coming years.

The Association of Independent Museums is a thriving UK museum membership organisation with over 1000 museum members, helping heritage organisations to operate as effective charitable businesses. We represent a wide range from some of the largest attractions in the country to small, grassroots heritage organisations across a huge range of subject areas and localities. AIM is funded by Arts Council England as an Investment Principles Support Organisation.

Arts Council England will convene a project reference group for the research. Arts Council England’s Strategic Framework 2026 replaces its previous strategy, Let’s Create. This practical, interim guide sets out how it will prioritise work, design services and make investment decisions while consulting on and developing a new strategy. Read more at

AIM will convene a project advisory group comprising the major representative and policy sector bodies to ensure the project reaches across the sector and reflects the best past data and current trends and needs.

The overarching research question is:

What are the factors that have affected the resilience, strategic capacity, and long-term sustainability of museums in England over the last fifteen years – and what interventions could best support these over the coming years?

The sector has undergone significant shifts over the past decade, including real decreases in local authority funding, rising costs, new governance models, organisational restructuring, and increased reliance on philanthropy and earned income. This research will provide an evidence base to inform future policy, investment, and support for the museum sector.

We want a deep financial analysis resulting in: a clear picture of funding and income patterns across the sector over the last fifteen years (e.g. regionally, by size, by governance type); a review of the impact of these patterns and trends on organisational sustainability; and a set of practical policy and funding recommendations aimed at stabilising the sector, giving us the language to talk about and advocate for the risk of loss, and producing a positive vision of security for the future.

Areas of interest include:

Public funding

• How have public funding sources changed since the Mendoza Review summarised public spending 2010-17, and how much has now been invested in the sector 2010-25?
• What is the picture of local authority funding over the period – not only direct funding to civic museums, but other support for example peppercorn rents for independent museums?
• What was the impact of different public funding decisions (e.g. the move into the Arts Council, Lottery funding, the introduction of new programmes like the tax relief and MEND, research and innovation funding)? How does public funding incentivise particular behaviours or trends within the sector?
• What governance models appear to support greater resilience, strategic capacity, sustainable collections care and public engagement outputs?
• What is the relationship between the financial picture 2010-25, 2026 sector, and methodologies for calculating return on investment including government programmes of impact and evaluation such as Culture and Heritage Capital? What does value for money look like for funding programmes such as the Arts Everywhere Fund?

Income

• What can…