Programme information

Opinions differ as to the competencies needed most when it comes to contemporary museum and heritage work. According to some, museum and heritage workers in middle and senior positions should have an educational background as specialists in a specific knowledge area or as specialists in one of the traditional museum functions of presentation, education and collection management. Others expect museum and heritage professionals to be trained as mediators or facilitators, or as agents of change, addressing social concerns and engaging in public debate. The master Applied Museum and Heritage Studies is designed for the latter kind of professional. The museum and heritage professional of the future is a maker, an actor and an agent of change, taking societal developments and pressing and pertinent issues as point of departure. This follows a trend set in motion by the Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (Faro, 2005), which shifted focus from heritage objects to heritage communities and the values they hold. The Netherlands National Heritage Agency has recently started a Faro programme on heritage participation which is to culminate in an implementation plan.

In the museum sector this development led to the UNESCO museum recommendation of 2015, which not only emphasises the need for museums to give due attention to immaterial cultural heritage in line with the 2003 UNESCO Convention, but also encourages museums to take social responsibility. This push for museums to be agents of social change has culminated in a proposal for an unequivocal new ICOM museum definition. The trend is clear: Museums have to take on responsibilities regarding societal inclusion, sustainability and participation. As ICOM president Suay Aksoy (2019) has stated: “The discussion continues […] about the implementation and assimilation of these new ideas as they will probably appear in the new definition that will be an amendment of the proposed one.”

Proposed ICOM Museum definition 2019: Museums are democratising, inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical dialogue about the pasts and the futures. Acknowledging and addressing the conflicts and challenges of the present, they hold artefacts and specimens in trust for society, safeguard diverse memories for future generations and guarantee equal rights and equal access to heritage for all people. Museums are not for profit. They are participatory and transparent, and work in active partnership with and for diverse communities to collect, preserve, research, interpret, exhibit, and enhance understandings of the world, aiming to contribute to human dignity and social justice, global equality and planetary wellbeing.

ICOM Netherlands has expressed its support for the proposed museum definition. It confirms that the pressing issues of inclusivity and sustainability in society today are equally those of museum and heritage professionals. In addition, these two issues, as well as digitality, figure prominently in various agendas in contemporary society, such as the New European Agenda for Culture of the European Commission (2018) and the Dutch National Research Agenda (2016) and the Faro guidelines for strategic plans in the Flemish museum and heritage sector (2019).

Sustainability has become a worldwide concern with respect to climate change, loss of biodiversity and economic development, but also with respect to the valuation of subaltern knowledge systems, traditions, and forms of intangible heritage. Currently, leading heritage organisations such as UNESCO and ICOMOS underscore the need to act on sustainability. Both international organisations, and their members, are committed to the Sustainable Development Goals. On a national level, the urgency of sustainability is demonstrated by the ‘Erfgoeddeal’ (OCW 2019), by the priorities in the National Research Agenda and, for example, by the Heritage and Sustainability progamme 2019-2023 of the National Heritage Agency (RCE). AMHS teaches students to reflect on, and deal with, the issues arising from the sustainability agenda: What is the role of heritage professionals in the face of climate change? How should the sector deal with immaterial cultural heritage which is detrimental to biodiversity?

The theme of inclusivity, and by extension democratisation, touches upon the following questions. How do heritage and museum professionals deal with diversity, regionalisation, globalisation, decolonisation, equity and identity? Which groups have a place at the professional table, and which don’t? Who is entitled to speak and to be heard? How do we deal with conflicting emotions, views and opinions? Who has authority? Who decides? Do subaltern groups have a say? Concrete topics related to inclusivity are: the repatriation of colonial objects; exhibiting the colonial past; slavery; objects and traditions which are experienced as racist, discriminatory or just offensive by certain groups; as well as inclusion of LGBTQ+ perspectives and accessibility to audiences with special needs. This theme regularly features in various ways in policy and policy review.

Digitality is a term coined by Nicholas Negroponte (1995) in analogy with modernity, comprising the conditions of a digital society. It includes current debates on digital heritage and big data, as well as issues of dissemination, authenticity and copyrights. The master AMHS prepares students for the digital challenges of the future. A major challenge to take into account are the consequences of digitalisation, and digitality in general, for the experience of objects and traditions, for the experience of authenticity and for the interaction of, and with, the public. Not less important is the question how digitality impacts issues related to sustainability and inclusivity.

The domain of museums and heritage is changing. New challenges call for a new type of professional because they cannot be adequately addressed by the traditional academic, collection-bound disciplines or solely by the specialist fields within museum studies, such as conservation, documentation and education. Contemporary museum and heritage professionals can formulate convincing visions and conduct convincing interventions which can trigger politicians, professionals and the public. They adopt an integral and integrated perspective on cultural heritage and display a large degree of reflexivity regarding the relationship between practice, theory and ethics.

The programme offers students the opportunity to reflect more deeply on – and to experiment with – these new visions of heritage and its role in society. Students will learn and work in an international environment, where lecturers and colleagues deal with issues which are important, not only in the global context, but for local realities too. The conditions in the sector are becoming ever-more connected and increasingly multicultural and benefit from larger networks.

At the same time the sector has been heavily affected by the global financial crisis and most recently the COVID-19 restrictions. Public and private funding levels have greatly been reduced. This means that museum and heritage professionals must have sound knowledge and skills in fund raising. In terms of employment it means that much work is conducted on a freelance and project basis. Part-time employment is also highly common in the sector.