What does the future of museums look like in the wake of rapidly changing communities?
This is the question the International Council of Museums seeks to explore during this year’s International Museum Day (IMD), a global event which highlights the transformative role of museums in society on the 18th of May each year. The 2025 theme focuses on how museums continue evolving alongside the technological, environmental, and societal changes we are seeing across the world.
Museums are more than spaces for preserving the past; as the International Council of Museums notes, they are “essential for building sustainable, inclusive, and forward-thinking communities.”
From their origins in 1542 to today, the University of Aberdeen’s University Collections have a long history. Today the collections, of human culture, natural sciences, and medicine, gathered throughout the university histories are a 'Recognised Collection of National Significance.' As well as having two on-campus venues open to the public – the Zoology Museum and The Gallery within the Sir Duncan Rice Library – we have curated a number of online exhibitions to ensure the University Collections are accessible to audiences around the world.
The collections continue to develop as new and important acquisitions are made, and are being reinterpreted using new techniques and re-evaluated from different perspectives. This includes reviewing the collections to identify items that were looted or unethically returned, so it can initiate discussions and respond to proposals about returning these items. To date this has included the 2021 return of a Benin Bronze, the first such return in the world by a museum, and – more recently – the return of Tasmanian ancestral remains to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre.
Ensuring the museum and heritage sectors continue evolving alongside wider societal changes also plays a key role in the University’s delivery of museum-related programmes and courses. MLitt Museum Studies students gain an appreciation of contemporary issues museums face through choosing from optional courses which focus on emerging digital technologies as they relate to museums, or decolonising museums, which tackles one of the most pressing issues facing the sector today.
The University has also developed numerous short online courses addressing these challenges. Courses such as Digital Museum Practice and Museums and Sustainable Futures help museum and heritage professionals worldwide continue developing their skillsets.