Birmingham citizens shape future of museums
On 30 January 2025, a Citizens' Jury in Birmingham, England, presented 20 recommendations for the future of the city's museums. The mini-public addressed the question: ‘What does Birmingham need and want from its museums, now and in the future, and what should the Birmingham Museums Trust do to realise these things?’
The Citizens' Jury, made up of 26 residents from across Birmingham, met for more than 30 hours of discussions between September and November 2024.
‘Museums need to take risks’
Birmingham's museums must be prepared to take risks to encourage and inspire engagement, according to the report of the Citizens' Jury, which was convened by the Birmingham Museums Trust.
‘It is important for our museums to involve and represent the communities they are responsible to, i.e. the people of Birmingham and they shouldn’t be precious about doing so,‘ the Citizens’ Jury members state in their report. ‘We deserve museums that are proud of us, that we can be proud of, that celebrate what’s unique about Birmingham.’
Four themes
The mini-public recommendations cover four themes: Funding and Promotion, Reaching New Audiences, Accessibility and Inclusion, Community Engagement and Collaboration, and Exploring Diverse Perspectives in Museums. The recommendations were ranked in order of approval by the Citizens' Jury.
The recommendation with the highest agreement rating called for better promotion of the city’s museums and their activities. It suggested that the trust challenges the city council’s planning rules, which prevent Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG) from promoting its entrances. It is also recommended that the Museum Foundation expands its social media strategy by working with influencers and establishing a presence on the TikTok platform, as well as hosting a private event for influencers.
Demands on exhibitions
The recommendation with the second highest approval rate calls for exhibitions to be made accessible to all Birmingham residents. They should be ‘aesthetically pleasing’, take into account neurodiversity and provide information in multiple languages, including British Sign Language.
The jury also suggested the trust consider changing its opening times, citing the museum’s Collection Centre, which is only open during prayer times on Fridays, and BMAG, which is only open during working hours on weekdays.
Engaging businesses as supporters
Another highly ranked recommendation was that trust should work to secure corporate sponsorship. Suggestions included a Netflix-sponsored Peaky Blinders exhibition and collaborations with local technology, creative and manufacturing companies.
The museum should also ‘fully exploit’ on the potential to offer exhibition space for corporate events and entertainment and explore the market for church events and Asian weddings, the Citizens' Jury recommends.
'We feel more pride in our museums'
The Citizens' Jury met over six sessions in October and November 2024, combining online and face-to-face meetings. The jury heard from 12 ‘expert’ commentators, made 3 exhibition visits, and shared their own opinions and lived experience. Mini-public members received £360 worth of vouchers as an expense allowance.
A joint statement from the jury said: 'At the beginning of this process we didn’t know what to expect. Many of us haven’t been to a museum in a long time, we didn’t know what Birmingham Museums Trust was about, and what it could mean to us. We were not engaged and did not feel close to our museums. As a result of the process, we feel more pride in our museums and the city.'
Our museums need to update how they are perceived in Birmingham and on a national stage. The re-opened Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery is much more appealing, we hope to see this continued across the other sites and that the Trust makes sure the people are aware of the amazing things it has to offer and the process it has gone through. The voice of the museum is to some extent, the voice of the people, and we want everyone to hear us a mile coming.'
‘Valuable insights’
Zak Mensah and Sara Wajid, the trust’s co-chief executives, said the recommendations will be a 'cornerstone' of the organisation’s 'transformation'. ‘The Citizens’ Jury has provided us with invaluable insights and a clear direction for the future of our museums, emphasising the importance of creating spaces that are more inclusive, accessible and relevant to local communities while reflecting the region’s rich and diverse cultural heritage,’ said Mensah and Wajid.
They added that they hoped the jury’s 'thoughtful and collaborative process' could be a model for how other cultural institutions could engage directly with their communities.
Rethinking power in cultural institutions
David Jubb, co-founder of Citizens In Power, explained in a blog post that the Birmingham Citizens' Jury was about 'rethinking how power works in a cultural institution'.
‘Organisations are full of competing internal dynamics. Staff members disagree about priorities,’ Jubb writes. ‘Senior leaders get caught between ambition and pragmatism. Strategic plans stall. In the mix of this, achieving clarity of vision can be a slow process,’ explains Jubb.
Letting users guide cultural institutions
He continued: 'Imagine if museums, arts organisations and theatres didn’t consult their communities but followed their lead. Imagine if staff teams were galvanised by the moral and democratic authority of a citizens’ assembly or jury, a decision-making process that cuts through internal politics and egos. That’s the radical possibility at Birmingham Museums Trust. Not just that museums will open their doors wider, but that they will become an institution that is led by the people they serve.'
To convene the Citizens' Jury, 5,000 Birmingham residents had received an invitation to attend from Birmingham Museums Trust. 26 participants from across the city were selected in a two-stage sortition process to create a representative cross-section of Birmingham's population. The participants who made up the jury were aged from 18 to 79.
The Birmingham Museums Trust chose the Citizens' Jury format because of its benefits 'both in terms of their casual participation and their ability to produce well-considered, informed recommendations'. Citizens' Juries differ from most other forms of public consultation, where citizens are usually asked to respond to predetermined policy options on the basis of limited information.
Reinventing museums
Social enterprise Shared Future has been commissioned to run the process drawing on their wealth of experience in this field, alongside DemocracyNext, 'who was supporting as an advisor and critical friend to the process'. The Jury was supported by an Oversight Panel, who ensured the process is in line with best practice principles.
This initiative is part of Birmingham Museum Trust's broader transformation strategy, aiming to reinvent the city's museums as genuinely democratic and inclusive spaces for the 21st century.
Precursor in Germany
The Birmingham Museums Citizens' Jury has been funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund as part of Birmingham Museums Trust's Laying the Foundations programme.
The Birmingham Museums Citizens' Jury has predecessors in Germany. In 2023, the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD) organised two Society Forums. Their aim was to reassess the importance of cultural institutions in terms of their role in society.
Mini-publics on culture in Coventry and Nottingham
In Coventry, England, randomly selected residents took part in a Citizens' Assembly in October and November 2021 to discuss how art, culture and creativity can contribute to a better future for the UK's Capital of Culture 2021. In Nottingham, England, the world's first permanent Citizens' Assembly on art and culture is intended to make art and culture a matter for all residents.