University News Last updated 07 October 2016
Aiming to maintain the interest of the public in museums and cultural centres against today’s digitally dominated society, Birmingham City University has joined a large-scale EU project designed to explore new ways of communicating art and culture.
The ‘smARTplaces’ initiative will look at how to attract new visitor groups to museums, whilst considering the changing needs and interests of visitors to cultural hotspots.
The four-year €2m project will see cultural institutions and universities from eight countries come together to work as strategic partners, including Oulu University of Applied Sciences in Finland and Liechtenstein National Museum.
Paul Long, Professor of Media and Cultural History at Birmingham City University and Director of the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research, said: “As the only UK partner participating in the ‘smARTplaces’ project, we’re delighted to be involved.
“This work also ties in well with a new postgraduate course we’ve launched this year on Innovation and Leadership in Museum Practice, designed to meet the growing need for museum professionals to be multi-skilled, innovative and commercially aware.”