Over £129k awarded through the Small Grants Fund

We’re pleased to announce that £129,584 has been awarded to 12 museum organisations across the country through the latest round of our Small Grants Fund thanks to support from the Scottish Government.

A museum staff member with light skin tone, short brown hair, and glasses is standing on the right/ On the left is an adult with light skin tone and long blonde hair. They are both looking at a booklet that says 'Ullapool Museum' across the front.

The awarded projects aim to improve audience engagement, education, and accessibility.

They include Ullapool Museum which will use its £10,800 award to support the creation of a new podcast led by its Young Curators Club. Spellcast will explore the stories, myths, and history of Scotland’s accused witches, bringing local and national witchcraft histories to life for new and existing audiences. The project will support young people to develop research, storytelling, digital media, and interviewing skills while working with historians, creatives, and community partners.

High Life Highland has received £7,719 to host a one-day event in November to celebrate 90 years since Dr. Isobel F Grant established Am Fasgadh (The Highland Folk Museum) and 201 years since the inception of Inverness Museum and Gallery, the first museum in Inverness. The event will focus on what makes the museums’ Highland collections unique, through the lens of researchers from the local area and further afield. The conference will also serve as a learning opportunity for the museum’s recently formed Young Curators group, which will be involved from the early planning stages through to the community exhibition and conference delivery.

Meanwhile, University of Dundee has been awarded £14,647 to improve physical access in the Lamb Gallery by upgrading three display cases. Currently, the display cases have wooden sides and glass tops, requiring visitors to lean over to see the contents. This design makes them inaccessible to wheelchair users and visitors with limited mobility. The new laminated glass cases will sit at a lower height and on legs rather than a solid base so that standard wheelchair users can go underneath them to get closer to the objects. The cases will first be used for an exhibition titled “Phenomenal Bodies” which will explore the museum’s medical and art collections through the lens of disability before the cases are permanently installed in the gallery.

The awarded organisations are: