Accreditation variation
Museum accreditation standards are utilised across the world (Taylor, 2015). The ini-tial analysis showed variation in the effectiveness of accreditation in different coun-tries. From the users’ perspective there is evidence that child sites in local authority or in regional organisations were not benefiting as much in knowledge development or performance as independent organisations. Here we can also look at the provision differences.
The UK museum accreditation scheme was originally introduced in 1998; the current accreditation standard was introduced in 2018. It is managed in partnership by the Arts Council England, the Welsh Government, Museums Galleries Scotland, and the Northern Ireland Museums Council. The Accreditation Scheme’s aim is for ‘all museums to be sustainable, focused and trusted’ organisations, which offer their visi-tors a great experience (ACE Accreditation Scheme, 2022). The Accreditation Scheme sets out nationally-agreed standards, which inspire the confidence of the public and of funding and governing bodies (ACE Accreditation scheme, 2019). The accreditation guidance has different indicator scales for the registration of local authority museums, university museums, and National museums (ACE guidance, 2018). Museums are accredited by successfully completing the ‘working-towards-accreditation’ programme. Then a 12-month provisional accreditation is awarded, fol-lowed by full accreditation lasting five years. The accreditation application and re-accreditation, focus on organisational health, collections, users and their experiences (Figure 7 16).
The accreditation scheme sets a number of financial priorities, such as the museum should have expenditure allocated for ‘conservation, exhibitions, premises maintenance, operations’, and to not be financially over-dependent on one source (ACE Accreditation Scheme, 2022). The statistical analysis in this research supports these priorities as it shows the increased positive impact on knowledge artefacts and performance by having budgets allocated for collection care, maintenance, marketing, and education, alongside achieving the best knowledge and performance from a diversified financial model. There , however, knowledge artefact and performance variations across the nations and countries examined. So how do their schemes vary?
The landing page for museum accreditation for England (Figure 7 17) is the main page for the whole UK (ACE, 2025e). It had a rather austere look, talking frequently about standards, requirements, accountability, ethics, and so on. It had links to spreadsheets and to many PDFs with statistics.
The lower part of the webpage (Figure 7 18) had been recently updated with a more user-friendly content and linked to useful partner and support organisations, and to news, all accompanied by photos creating a friendlier, more engaging look.
Navigating the pages to find resources has traditionally been extremely confusing, and from participant informal feedback, Grantium, its accreditation and grants’ portal, is extremely inhospitable, or user-unfriendly. The statistical analysis showed that English accredited museums accumulated more knowledge artefacts than any other participating country or nation, but the conversion rate to being updated had not increased, whilst performance was positive but the least increased from all the participating countries and nations.
The Scottish museums accreditation landing webpage had an airier look, including images, and a focus on accreditation mentors; the personal support being of clear significance (Figure 7 19) (Museums Galleries Scotland, 2025). The list of ac-credited museums was presented through an interactive searchable map, in a separate webpage accompanied by images, rather than a spreadsheet. The questionnaire analysis showed the presence of knowledge artefacts in unaccredited and accredited museums being similar, so perhaps unaccredited museums do also access them. Accredited museums in Scotland, however had the highest conversion to updated (73.98%), perhaps related to the personable approach in the accreditation website. That Scottish high conversion of updated knowledge artefacts related to the highest performance across the three participating UK nations.
The archives accreditation landing webpage was similar to the Welsh, but not as laconic (The National Archives, 2025b). Each link to the resources had a brief de-scription. The presence, updating, and conversion rates were more modest in accred-ited archives compared to accredited museums, but the performance increase was dramatically higher in accredited archives (Figure 6 20). A few key differences be-tween the museum and archive schemes were observable. The re-accreditation cycle is six years (checked every three years), not four or five as it has been for museums (pers. comm. Accreditation Committee). The archives accreditation scheme is UK wide, not for each of the UK nations separately, and instead it has a specific aspect of scalability built-in, so it can suit different size organisations. The more distinctive difference is that it is not managed by a provider or non-departmental body, but in-stead by a user organisation, the National Archives, which is one of the DCMS 15 directly-funded national institutions (The National Archives, 2025b).
The museum accreditation landing webpage for Wales was not pretty nor preachy, but to the point (Figure 7 21) (Welsh Government, 2021). All it contained was links to the relevant documents; guidance, standards, and so on. There was no data for unaccredited Welsh museums unfortunately from this research’s surveys, however, the conversion rate of present-to-updated knowledge artefacts in Welsh accredited museums was the second highest, at 71.94%, and related to the second highest performance across these three UK nations.
The New Zealand museums’ standards scheme was devised to provide a framework that would encourage museums of all sizes to evaluate their work and continually improve their performance (Taylor, 2015). It was launched in 2002 follow-ing extensive research and it reflects international standards. It is managed by New Zealand’s museums’ National Services Te Paerangi team from Te Papa National mu-seum of New Zealand, which plans collaboratively and works to develop cross-sector effective resource sharing (Taylor, 2015). The main aims of the scheme include reaching best practice standards in operations, building confidence, and providing strategic focus. It can be used by any museum, gallery or exhibition centre, as a free self-assessment, peer-supported quality assurance benchmarking process. It has been particularly useful in smaller museums with few staff, and in rural areas. Its user museums have provided feedback noting that its strength is in having the standards requirements and the solution-resources together, being free, user-friendly, easily ac-cessible, practical and useful as a check list to help include improvement actions in the business plans (Taylor, 2015). The registration process is easy, utilising a self-review process using the Standard, followed by peer-reviews to help develop an ac-tion plan. The scheme provides standards and supportive guidance links on museum governance, code of ethics, new museum planning, museum standards, training and policies (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2025, 2016). The ‘Running a museum’ section has complete resources on all activities, under three operational headings: museum management, relations, and operations (Table 7 1) (Museum of New Zealand and Te Papa Tongarewa, 2025). The operational headings from this guidance were key for the development of the operational drums in this research.
The New Zealand museum standard scheme webpage combined many posi-tive aspects ( Figure 7 22 and Figure 7 23). It was to the point, but with brief de-scriptions, it had direct links to the resources and promoted the advantages of the scheme. It clearly stated that it is free, but also claimed to be (and was) practical, and user-friendly. The scheme and its resources were broken into five easy to access and work-through modules, which were available to all, accredited and unaccredited museums. Based on this research’s questionnaire, this approachable and user-friendly set up for accredited museums related to extraordinary increase in present knowledge artefacts (139%), increase of updated knowledge artefacts (185%), increased conversion rate (80%), and increased performance (17%). Similarly to the other high performing accreditation scheme of UK archives, it was also managed directly by a national user organisation, the Te Papa National muse-um of New Zealand, rather than a provider or non-departmental body.
The recognition and validation scheme is the Greek equivalent to the museum accreditation scheme. It used to have an austere government-look, in a text-heavy webpage. It had recently (2024) been updated to a friendlier look, with a header image, and more modular subsections with brief description and links to other main pages (Figure 7 24). The scheme is, however, more of a registration programme, and appears to provide no knowledge resources or associated support (Υπουργείο Πολιτισμού (Culture Council), 2024). The presence of knowledge artefacts in its ac-credited museums was negligibly higher, although updated levels and conversion to updated knowledge artefacts were higher. There is a significant increase in performance in accredited Greek museums, potentially related to improved net-working, and access to other resources and funding.
For accreditation then, an approachable and open culture, easy process in us-ing knowledge artefacts, and the involvement of leading user organisations in the pro-vision, all appear to contribute positively to the condition of knowledge artefacts and associated increase in performance. Technological advances affect these too, and the next section examines the role of technology in operational knowledge curation.
