The Annual Museum Survey 2023 is now open and will close at 5pm on Wednesday 21 June
The purpose of the Annual Museum Survey 2023
The purpose of the Annual Museum Survey is to gather evidence to help demonstrate the social and economic importance of museums to funders and stakeholders – locally, regionally and nationally – and to provide museums with data to enable them to benchmark their performance.
What’s in it for museums?
- Advocacy – evidence to make the case for your social and economic value in order to sustain investment
- Performance benchmarking – consistent data to compare your museum’s operational context
- Informing strategy – knowing your operational context will support your business planning
- Fundraising – the data can be used as evidence to support funding applications or to express your value with the public
The process
The Annual Museum Survey 2023 is open now. Registered museums are have been invited to participate in the survey by email. The email includes a direct link to an online survey tool called SmartSurvey.
We have provided the survey questions offline below to assist you in preparing your return. Please note, the offline surveys will differ depending on whether you are a single site or a multi site organisation. The definitions will help to provide added clarity on the terminology used within the survey questions. Please note, the online survey uses logic to apply only relevant questions. Therefore, some of the offline survey questions listed below may not apply and will result in fewer questions and a shorter survey process.
If you require any further support, please contact: museum.data@bristol.gov.uk
Data sharing and open source data
Reports based on this survey will be published widely and made available on this webpage. Data provided via the survey will be combined with those of other museums to produce publicly available reports. The data will support sector advocacy, inform Museum Development business planning and sector wide strategic planning.
The dataset will be published as open source data on Museum Development websites from January 2025 – approximately one year after regional reports are published to support further research. The datasets will not include financial information or any personal information generated by the survey process. The aggregate data set generated by the survey in 2024 will be shared with our main funders, Arts Council England.
