Today is my second day back at work after abruptly having to put my life on hold in November 2019. Six months ago, out of the blue, I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. 

But, if it is possible to be lucky when having cancer, I have been (so far). I had a speedy diagnosis, excellent medical care from all the NHS staff at The Royal Marsden, and successfully completed intensive treatment before the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19). My thoughts are very much with those being diagnosed or in treatment right now. 

"The world, the workplace, and the heritage sector that I am returning to, are, of course, not normal." 

Thankfully, I am now cancer free and, despite having a lot less hair (which is, at least, practical during lockdown) I am more or less back to normal. 

But the world, the workplace, and the heritage sector that I am returning to, are, of course, not normal. 

Facing the crisis 

This is the biggest crisis I have seen in my lifetime. I’m very proud of the way everyone at The Fund has mobilised to support people and organisations working in heritage across the UK.

Within days of moving all our 300 staff to home working, my team surveyed over 1,000 heritage organisations to understand the immediate impact of coronavirus (COVID-19). Using this evidence, we launched our Heritage Emergency Fund, offering emergency grants of between £3,000 and £50,000. We have already approved the first round of applications.

We increased our investment in digital skills for the sector, recognising how important digital expertise will be in a ‘social distancing’ world. And we firmly committed to supporting our existing grantees through this most difficult of times, providing them with greater flexibility on grant payments and making over £31m of grant payments in April.

Next phase of financial help 

But we also recognise that some organisations, particularly independent heritage attractions that are highly dependent on visitor income, may have a higher level of financial need than our initial emergency funding can cover.

I’m pleased to announce therefore – as my first action since returning – a new strand to our Heritage Emergency Fund. 

Within the current £50m Heritage Emergency Fund, we’re creating a new grant range of £50,000–£250,000. It will be open to past and current grantees.

This new strand will help us:

• respond to exceptional cases of larger-scale need
• protect heritage at severe immediate risk
• and, crucially, safeguard the heritage that can play a key role in the UK’s economic and community regeneration from the impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19)

We are developing the detail for how to apply for these new grants in the coming week. We will actively communicate this when applications are open. In the meantime you can keep up to date with the latest information by following us on social media.

The future for heritage 

The Heritage Emergency Fund will enable us to help those most in need in the immediate term. Our non-financial support, such as the additional investment in digital skills, will help many more organisations adapt to new ways of working and be better equipped to survive.  

This crisis, however, brings new and unique challenges.

Even heritage organisations that have built successful income streams are vulnerable. The impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) will be uneven – the consequences for some communities, regions and types of organisations will be far more significant than for others. And I recognise that despite all our efforts at the Heritage Fund, the difficult fact is that we will not have the resources to help everyone we would like to.

Some heritage organisations are going to have to rethink their future. Given the uncertainty we face, some may have to do so despite their own Herculean efforts even if they have received support from us.

"We are living through an extraordinary time, and neither we – nor our vital, creative sector – will look quite the same again."

We are living through an extraordinary time, and neither we – nor our vital, creative sector – will look quite the same again. But the fundamental importance of heritage in people’s lives, the contribution that it makes to people’s wellbeing, sense of self and of place, the need to protect it for future generations and its value as an employer and to the economy means we must all work together to achieve the best possible outcome. 

So, beyond the immediate funding support we have already launched, I see our role at The Fund as supporting the heritage sector to work through how the future will be different. This must be a joint endeavour, and we will work with the widest group of partners and draw on different and new perspectives to reimagine the heritage sector in the future.

New views 

To start this conversation, this month we are launching ‘Future Heritage’, a series of opinion pieces from a range of leaders across our sector. We hope these diverse views will stimulate new thinking, ideas and debate about the future of heritage in a world after coronavirus (COVID-19).

"All of us involved in heritage know – beyond its economic contribution – how critically important it is." 

All of us involved in heritage know – beyond its economic contribution – how critically important it is. The benefits it delivers will be just as important as we look to the future, if not more so, but our sector will need to innovate and embrace new ways of working to thrive.

It is an unfamiliar landscape that I find myself returning to, but I'm very pleased that I’m back and able to contribute at a time when there’s so much that needs to be done.

Cancer makes you stop and reassess your life. I’ve come out the other end of it feeling that what we as a sector do, and the work of The Fund is more important than ever. Working with our stakeholders, our Board of Trustees, committee members and my team, I look forward to tackling the challenges ahead for the heritage community.  

In the meantime, stay safe and look out for each other. I know how important it is to have the support of family and friends during these extraordinary times.  

When in doubt, revel in the darkness.
Each act of celebration is a spark.
Gathered together
they call back the sun.

 

- from Revelers, by Lynn Ungar

Disregard statistics for a moment. At a human level, these are dark days.

As in many other workplaces, in an independent museum, where you know the name not just of every colleague but also their children and pets, the individual cost of the pandemic is everywhere.

"This crisis has shown the remarkable capacity for people to adapt and bring their human instincts and resilience to the fore."

Our team has had its share of anxiety, illness and grief. The toll is only exacerbated by the fact we can’t reach out and touch those who most need it.

Yet this crisis has also shown the remarkable capacity for people to adapt and bring their human instincts and resilience to the fore.

The future museums face

Museums face an unimaginable future. Writing in mid-May, I hope the sector might reopen in time for the summer. But I don’t quite know how, nor whether people will come.

My own museum, the Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds, faces a double whammy as the lockdown started during a major refurbishment. Not only did we lose our trading income, but delay to the project means we have lost the opportunity of even an uncertain summer reopening. Government assistance, such as rates relief and furloughing, has helped us stay afloat, just.

Funders such as The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England have been quick to provide emergency funding for those in the most need. But we know that it won’t be enough for everyone. Many museums will need to make difficult choices after coronavirus (COVID-19).

The value of independent museums

The irony is that independent museums will be needed more than ever post pandemic.

"Where better to make sense of what we have all been through than in a medical museum?"

People will need places in which to reconnect with relatives and friends. Families will need affordable destinations for previously cooped-up children to decompress. Where better to take your gran for her first cup of tea out? Where better to make sense of what we have all been through than in a medical museum?

The UK doesn’t have a national museum of medicine. Most of our medical museums are away from the bustle of the nationals, tucked in corners of medical associations and colleges or else independent charities like Thackray Museum. They don’t have the larger museums’ access to resources.

Yet these are the very times that people need to know that the Anaesthesia Heritage Centre, the George Marshall Medical Museum, the Florence Nightingale Museum, or the many others across the country, will continue to bear witness to this remarkable moment and to inspire the next generation of health heroes.

Galvanised by crisis

Even during the lockdown, the value of our sector has been proved.

Like many, we contributed to #MuseumFromHome. We have supported wellbeing through activities such as our Lorina Bulwer Sew-In and initiated coronavirus (COVID-19) collecting and co-curation initiatives, including a very hastily built Health Heroes microsite.

We made our car park free for NHS staff and hosted a food distribution point for frontline workers. We provided details of ventilator parts held in our collection to engineering companies to help make new ventilators. We worked round normally time-consuming and complex rules on disposal of museum objects to make useful kit available to the people who needed it.

"Those furloughed staff who could do so signed up as NHS volunteers while others found creative and daft ways to keep the team talking."

Those furloughed staff who could do so signed up as NHS volunteers while others found creative and daft ways to keep the team talking, laughing and even crying together, while apart.

Our trustees have been re-galvanised by the crisis, helping us to add coronavirus-related objects from the closing Nightingale Hospital and elsewhere to our museum collection, bringing both time and an enormous range of expertise to our cause. We have been in touch with other teams across the region to plan collecting strategies and digital engagement and sometimes, as in the case of Yorkshire Museum’s Curator Battles, just to be very silly indeed.

Preparing for a different future

Expectations have been (carefully) thrown out the window. And I've found that when freed from constraints of process, people’s deeper instincts and values have kicked in. That's why I’m optimistic about our capacity to meet the future. We don’t yet know quite what to expect, but we can have a good guess.

With fewer resources and audiences under pressure, our production costs will need to come down. More than ever, we will need to find ways to make every penny count, adding value and finding extra uses for everything we produce, from exhibitions to events.

"Museums that fail to reflect our collective recent experience on a human scale will seem aloof."

That will mean including more digital content in our projects and tailoring that content to a far greater range of communities’ needs, from training resources and apprenticeships, to advocacy tools, social prescribing opportunities and a whole host of other applications and re-uses that genuine collaboration will define. 

Big, expensive, blockbuster projects are, I think, going to feel unworldly after the crisis. Museums that fail to reflect our collective recent experience on a human scale will seem aloof.

Sharing for the common good

I believe that, with museums struggling to survive, remaining resources need to be shared for common good. This is not simply for the museums themselves, but for public benefit too.

This presents a fantastic opportunity for independent museums.

We are more agile, less process-driven and less beholden to patronage than many larger museums. We can get ahead of the curve.

I see this happening in a number of ways:

• It could mean finding ways to share investment in projects across multiple organisations and sites, both physical and digital.
• Contracts could follow models like Integrated Project Insurance to share risk.
• We need to share operations too. Administration and HR could be more efficiently delivered through collaboration.
• We need to find better ways of pooling our trustees’ time and expertise – why not have shared boards overseeing multiple independent museums? Put aside technical preconceptions (and a few egos) and it makes sense.

For the past bunkered weeks, we’ve all been reduced to identical digital boxes on the screen. A virtual existence that encourages democracy.

Let’s not forget how easy it is to connect and work together when the sun comes out again.

About Nat Edwards

Nat Edwards is Chief Executive of the Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds, one of the UK’s largest independent medical museums. 

Currently he is based in his daughter’s bedroom, both overseeing a £4million refurbishment of the museum and trying to get the virtual backgrounds on Zoom to work.

• Views expressed in the Future Heritage blog series are those of the authors, not necessarily of The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Today is my second day back at work after abruptly having to put my life on hold in November 2019. Six months ago, out of the blue, I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. 

But, if it is possible to be lucky when having cancer, I have been (so far). I had a speedy diagnosis, excellent medical care from all the NHS staff at The Royal Marsden, and successfully completed intensive treatment before the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19). My thoughts are very much with those being diagnosed or in treatment right now. 

"The world, the workplace, and the heritage sector that I am returning to, are, of course, not normal." 

Thankfully, I am now cancer free and, despite having a lot less hair (which is, at least, practical during lockdown) I am more or less back to normal. 

But the world, the workplace, and the heritage sector that I am returning to, are, of course, not normal. 

Facing the crisis 

This is the biggest crisis I have seen in my lifetime. I’m very proud of the way everyone at The Fund has mobilised to support people and organisations working in heritage across the UK.

Within days of moving all our 300 staff to home working, my team surveyed over 1,000 heritage organisations to understand the immediate impact of coronavirus (COVID-19). Using this evidence, we launched our Heritage Emergency Fund, offering emergency grants of between £3,000 and £50,000. We have already approved the first round of applications.

We increased our investment in digital skills for the sector, recognising how important digital expertise will be in a ‘social distancing’ world. And we firmly committed to supporting our existing grantees through this most difficult of times, providing them with greater flexibility on grant payments and making over £31m of grant payments in April.

Next phase of financial help 

But we also recognise that some organisations, particularly independent heritage attractions that are highly dependent on visitor income, may have a higher level of financial need than our initial emergency funding can cover.

I’m pleased to announce therefore – as my first action since returning – a new strand to our Heritage Emergency Fund. 

Within the current £50m Heritage Emergency Fund, we’re creating a new grant range of £50,000–£250,000. It will be open to past and current grantees.

This new strand will help us:

• respond to exceptional cases of larger-scale need
• protect heritage at severe immediate risk
• and, crucially, safeguard the heritage that can play a key role in the UK’s economic and community regeneration from the impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19)

We are developing the detail for how to apply for these new grants in the coming week. We will actively communicate this when applications are open. In the meantime you can keep up to date with the latest information by following us on social media.

The future for heritage 

The Heritage Emergency Fund will enable us to help those most in need in the immediate term. Our non-financial support, such as the additional investment in digital skills, will help many more organisations adapt to new ways of working and be better equipped to survive.  

This crisis, however, brings new and unique challenges.

Even heritage organisations that have built successful income streams are vulnerable. The impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) will be uneven – the consequences for some communities, regions and types of organisations will be far more significant than for others. And I recognise that despite all our efforts at the Heritage Fund, the difficult fact is that we will not have the resources to help everyone we would like to.

Some heritage organisations are going to have to rethink their future. Given the uncertainty we face, some may have to do so despite their own Herculean efforts even if they have received support from us.

"We are living through an extraordinary time, and neither we – nor our vital, creative sector – will look quite the same again."

We are living through an extraordinary time, and neither we – nor our vital, creative sector – will look quite the same again. But the fundamental importance of heritage in people’s lives, the contribution that it makes to people’s wellbeing, sense of self and of place, the need to protect it for future generations and its value as an employer and to the economy means we must all work together to achieve the best possible outcome. 

So, beyond the immediate funding support we have already launched, I see our role at The Fund as supporting the heritage sector to work through how the future will be different. This must be a joint endeavour, and we will work with the widest group of partners and draw on different and new perspectives to reimagine the heritage sector in the future.

New views 

To start this conversation, this month we are launching ‘Future Heritage’, a series of opinion pieces from a range of leaders across our sector. We hope these diverse views will stimulate new thinking, ideas and debate about the future of heritage in a world after coronavirus (COVID-19).

"All of us involved in heritage know – beyond its economic contribution – how critically important it is." 

All of us involved in heritage know – beyond its economic contribution – how critically important it is. The benefits it delivers will be just as important as we look to the future, if not more so, but our sector will need to innovate and embrace new ways of working to thrive.

It is an unfamiliar landscape that I find myself returning to, but I'm very pleased that I’m back and able to contribute at a time when there’s so much that needs to be done.

Cancer makes you stop and reassess your life. I’ve come out the other end of it feeling that what we as a sector do, and the work of The Fund is more important than ever. Working with our stakeholders, our Board of Trustees, committee members and my team, I look forward to tackling the challenges ahead for the heritage community.  

In the meantime, stay safe and look out for each other. I know how important it is to have the support of family and friends during these extraordinary times.