Impact

• We attract around 1 million visits a year. 
• We generate £20 million of economic impact for the local economy
• We care for our region’s heritage, including 1.1 million objects, artefacts and artworks
• We deliver learning programmes that inspire over 108,000 children and young people each year
• Over 10,000 community participants engage in our wellbeing programmes each year
• Volunteers contribute almost 25,000 hours to support our museums.

We believe everyone should have access to art, culture and heritage and we’re committed to using your amazing museums and collections to support people to respond to local and global challenges.

Our Mission sets out five key societal challenges that we help to address. Keep reading to learn more about our impact on:

• Equality
• Wellbeing
• Social mobility
• Climate
• Place.

We will provide a warm welcome to everyone, break down barriers caused by inequality and discrimination, and share diverse stories.

Breaking down barriers

Our nine venues offer free facilities and free events to make all visitors feel at home because everyone deserves a Warm Welcome.

We are ‘poverty proofing’ our venues to remove as many financial barriers as we can to visiting our venues. To breakdown economic barriers for families, we partner with Tyne and Wear Metro to deliver the multi-award-winning initiative Ways to Play - free activities every school holiday, plus free travel for children.

We are accredited Museums of Sanctuary and a lead partner in the North East Sanctuary and Culture Network. We deliver activities for refugees and asylum seekers to help them learn about the area and gain new skills and we encourage other organisations to become places of sanctuary.

We are committed to becoming an anti-racist organisation by:

• Reviewing what we do and the way we do it to identify and address any systemic racism. In particular but not exclusively in the areas of collecting, interpretation, workforce development and community engagement
• Opening ourselves up to greater public scrutiny, finding critical friends/professional peer reviewers who can help us on this journey
• Creating and strengthening an anti-racist culture across the organisation.

Sharing diverse stories

We think carefully about how we care for and display objects to ensure we are being respectful to all our communities and sharing a variety of perspectives. One of the ways we are doing this is by working towards a decolonisation of our collections and their interpretation. Read more about what we mean by decolonisation and our work in this area.

We’re increasing community-led research to enrich our displays and ensure that our diverse communities are represented in our venues and programmes – some examples include:

• We brought together people from South Asian, African and Caribbean diaspora communities to explore themes of empire, migration, and life in Britain with staff at Discovery Museum. The group identified opportunities to tell more stories representing their communities and the output was a display about 16 Inspirational Women of Colour who enrich the North East in healthcare, science, education, activism and politics, and an exhibition exploring an untold story about North East shipbuilding and Indian Indentureship.
• Bangladeshi diaspora communities in South Tyneside contributed to the Food & Drink exhibition at South Shields Museum and co-curated an exhibition celebrating the contribution Bangladeshi communities have made to the vibrancy of the culture and economy in the area - Routes & Roots: British Bangladeshi Stories of South Tyneside.
• A steering group from Global Majority communities, living in the North East are working with staff at the Great North Museum: Hancock to reimagine the museum’s Explore Gallery which includes natural history, natural science and ethnographic collections. The group are being provided with training and guidance from museum staff to support them to explore hidden narratives, bring new  voices and viewpoints to the display and highlight new and alternative objects from the collections.  This work is funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund. 
• Richard Bliss is our current Artist in Residence in Tyne & Wear Archives. He is uncovering hidden histories in our sound collections. You can read Richard's blogs about his work here:  
  Listening Between the Lines: Uncovering the Hidden in Oral Histories
  Listening Between the Lines: The Emotional Gap

Improving access

We have introduced training for our staff and resources and activities to improve access to our venues for people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). 

We encourage staff to engage with accessibility via a cross-organisation working group and information shared in our staff newsletter. We also provide regular access training for all staff. We aim to ensure our recruitment processes for both staff and volunteers are inclusive. 

We were awarded the Silver Autism Acceptance award by the North East Autism Society (NEAS) for our commitment to supporting autistic visitors, families, staff, and volunteers.

We offer workshops for schools and groups with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and at South Shields Museum & Art Gallery we have created Sensory Journeys, digital storytelling sessions involving audio stories and sensory activities to use alongside them.

We will use our spaces and services to support people’s physical and mental health.

We work with health and care professionals, local authorities, universities, charities and support services to create community programmes focused on improving wellbeing, targeting areas of need in our region.

The Platinum programme

The Platinum programme for over 55s, focuses on working with partners to provide a variety of opportunities and resources for older people to engage with art and history, especially people who are socially isolated or living with Dementia.

Examples of activities include weekly art sessions working with Equal Arts at the Hatton Gallery and weekly dance workshops organised by Helix Arts at Segedunum Roman Fort.

We also use real and replica museum objects for handling sessions to evoke memories, start conversations and inspire creative activities.

We hold regular Slow Museums sessions at our venues, providing a welcoming environment for anyone with a disability or who needs more time to visit museums and galleries.

The Wellbeing programme

The Wellbeing programme supports adults in mental health recovery with a variety of needs, from those in clinical settings, to connecting with people through community support services.

We deliver an ongoing programme with Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear (CNTW) NHS Foundation Trust at their St. Nicholas Hospital site. We worked with adult males on the Bede Secure Ward and both male and female adults on the Willow View ward, supporting the patients to co-create museum handling boxes to be used on the wards.

At Elm House in Gateshead (a community based, mixed ward for adults in mental health rehabilitation and recovery), we delivered a heritage programme every Wednesday afternoon and patients worked with an artist to create a mural on the garden wall.

We supported a Crisis (The Homeless Charity) volunteering group to develop skills in grounds maintenance and horticulture by helping to care for the museum site at Segedunum Roman Fort.

The Recovery programme

The Recovery programme works with addiction support services to provide activities and resources to aid people in their recovery journey.

We received funding from Gateshead Mental Health Transformation to work with Recovery Connections, a Gateshead based organisation who support people in addiction recovery, and Bensham Grove pottery at the Shipley Art Gallery on a year-long Recovery and Ceramics programme. It was an opportunity for people to learn creative skills in ceramics, find out about the Shipley ceramic collection and to be involved in the development of a ceramic exhibition at the Gallery.

A Recovery Connections group meets at the Shipley Art Gallery every week to explore different creative activities based on the collection. We also work with Oaktrees Addiction Service, collaborating on weekly creative and heritage sessions, including supporting employability skills.

The Network programme

The Network programme supports community development and helps people to access our museums who might not usually visit. For example, we run regular Museum Social events at our venues for people at risk of social isolation. The events are aimed at making people feel welcome and comfortable in our venues, as well as giving the opportunity to get creative.

The Network programme is currently supporting communities in North and South Tyneside including older people, health and wellbeing groups, and refugee and asylum seekers.

We will deliver learning experiences, volunteering opportunities and pathways for personal development for people of all ages and backgrounds.

Volunteering

Our brilliant volunteers support our museums through research, caring for collections, and helping with learning activities and events.

We have volunteers that support us all year round such as our invaluable volunteers at Stephenson Steam Railway who maintain and run our heritage railway. We also have people who volunteer for specific projects or events like The Late Shows – we usually get at least 30 volunteers helping steward the two-night event.

We offer work experience across all our venues, targeting schools with a higher-than-average percentage of students accessing Free School Meals. Students attend in cohorts across the year.

Find out more about our volunteering programmes.

Inspiring Children & Young People

“Thank you once again for a lovely workshop. The children really enjoyed themselves and the work they produced was great!” Teacher, after a visit to the Shipley Art Gallery

Research shows that children and young people who participate in arts and culture:

• Display positive behaviours, such as empathy
• Develop skills and behaviours that improve school performance (cognitive abilities up 17%)
• Are 38% more likely to report good health
• Are more likely to gain and stay in employment.

We deliver a huge range of learning opportunities for children and young people from spaces and activities for under 5s to placements for university students.

Thousands of children and young people take part in visits and workshops with their schools or colleges each year covering subjects including natural history, local heritage, visual art, science, technology, engineering and maths.

We offer tailored activities for children and young people with Special Educational Needs or Disabilities and also for Home Educated children.

We also provide hundreds of events and activities for children and young people to enjoy with their families on weekends and in school holidays. Young people who are more independent can also join groups to learn new skills, meet new friends and gain confidence – including Stephenson Steam Railway Young Volunteers and L-INK, a group that meets at the Laing Art Gallery and Hatton Gallery.

Find out more about our learning programmes.

We will raise awareness about the environment and encourage people to act for a sustainable future.

We recognise that the climate crisis poses a critical threat to the future of our planet and have prioritised it as one of the five key challenges we will seek to address as part of our mission. 

Our strategic aims to help tackle the climate crisis are:

• To embed environmentally responsible practices and processes throughout our operations
• To ensure environmentally responsible behaviour from our workforce
• To encourage environmentally responsible behaviour from our visitors, partners and stakeholders.

Our Environmental Policy (PDF, 144 KB) outlines the seven priority areas we will focus on across our work to achieve these aims:

• Energy Management
• Materials and Waste
• Procurement
• Transport
• Food and Drink
• Biodiversity
• Inspiring Change.

Raising Awareness

Two projects are in development to put a lens on environmental issues:

• Steam to Green at Discovery Museum tells the story of North East England’s role in the UK’s energy story, from the industrial revolution to the present day. The exhibition and events programme is delivered in partnership with Newcastle University and businesses working in the renewable energy sector.
• The Woodland Walk at Stephenson Steam Railway is transforming two acres of unused scrub land into a nature sanctuary where flora, fauna and wildlife can thrive. The project is being led by volunteers from the North Tyneside Steam Railway Association and will provide the opportunity for people of all ages to enjoy the space. It is possible thanks to funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

We encourage our staff and visitors to walk, cycle or use public transport to travel to the museum rather than driving, to reduce their own carbon footprint and collectively to make a significant impact to reducing carbon emissions.

We have a partnership with Tyne & Wear Metro which encourages families to use the Metro to visit our venues for a good value day out, as most of our venues are free admission and children under 11 travel free on the Metro with an adult.

Understanding our Impact

Since we began monitoring our energy consumption, we have been able to implement changes to ensure a downward trend. In recent years we have begun monitoring our utilities data in even greater detail, with half-hourly consumption data being analysed. We work internally and with our local authority partners to implement ways to reduce energy consumption, for example by adjusting timers on heating boilers.

In addition to this, we have also begun to expand our data collection and analysis into other areas (known as Scope 3 data) such as waste and travel. This will help us monitor our impact on the environment further in the coming years.

We have also analysed our retail and cafe offer and supply chains to understand the environmental impact and we are introducing changes. We purchase products and packing materials made from recycled materials where we can. We encourage our cafe visitors to reuse and recycle and offer a discount to people who bring their own cup for hot drinks.

Making Changes

We encourage staff to engage with our environmental objectives via a cross-organisation working group and regular information shared in our environmental staff newsletter ‘Green Matters’. We also provide opportunities for staff to attend conferences about environmental sustainability and we are developing a programme of Carbon Literacy training for all staff.

Discovery Museum underwent a major decarbonisation project including installation of district heating, secondary glazing, and replacement lighting to reduce the building’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels have been installed at the Great North Museum: Hancock and are now producing power. Energy panels and new light emitting diode (LED) lighting has also been installed at South Shields Museum & Art Gallery.

Environmental Records Information Centre

We lead the Environmental Records Information Centre for the North East. We are responsible for collation and management of species and habitat data for the region and make this available for environmental decision making such as planning and development or wildlife conservation. ERIC North East currently holds 4.4 million species records for the region.

We have supported local and national government bodies with data services and responded to more than 1,200 requests to inform planning development. We have been working on a two-year project to improve the Ancient Woodland Inventory in partnership with Natural England and Woodland Trust. We have also supported the early development of four Local Nature Recovery Strategies in our area.

We will celebrate North East England, inspire local pride and use our resources to support research, innovation and economic regeneration.

In 2023-24, we achieved:

• 31,410 visits to 63 Newcastle and Gateshead venues for The Late Shows
• 50,000 (circa) visits to 10 Downing Street during the ‘Museum in Residence’ exhibition
• 40,153 visitors to the Turner: Art, Industry & Nostalgia exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery
• 130,326 visits to Myth Quest: Monsters & Mortals at the Great North Museum: Hancock

Must-see events

Our exhibitions and events draw visitors from across the North East and beyond – shining a spotlight on our region’s art, culture and heritage. Recent highlights include:

For two nights every May we host The Late Shows, showcasing the best of Newcastle and Gateshead’s cultural scene, including behind the scenes tours, crafts, discos, live music, exhibitions, food, drink and more. The annual culture crawl attracts 20-30,000 visits and receives brilliant feedback from visitors, volunteers and venues.

In 2024 the Laing Art Gallery delivered two high profile exhibitions – it was Museum in Residence at 10 Downing Street in London exhibiting nine works from the Laing collection representing Newcastle upon Tyne and the wider North East region. It also displayed a blockbuster exhibition featuring JMW Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire as the focal point as part of the National Gallery’s National Treasures programme. Turner: Art, Industry & Nostalgia included 25 additional works by Turner alongside works from John Constable, James McNeill Whistler, L.S. Lowry, Tacita Dean, and photographers John Kippin and Chris Killip.

In 2023 the Great North Museum: Hancock tried a new style of exhibition which involved taking part in a live action game following a trail around the museum to complete a quest. Myth Quest: Monsters & Mortals encouraged visitors to explore the museum, meeting magical and mythical creatures along the way.

Developing places

Our museums and galleries are important community hubs and tourism assets for the towns and cities where they are situated. We have an ongoing programme of capital projects to maintain and upgrade our venues including:

We are working with North Tyneside Council to progress the Segedunum transformation project. The vision includes the restoration of the bath house, a new tower panorama presentation, new galleries, enhanced interpretation of the archaeological site, and an attractive standalone café.

We have received funding from Arts Council England’s Museum Estates and Development Fund (MEND) for building maintenance work at Segedunum Roman Fort, South Shields Museum & Art Gallery and Discovery Museum.

A catalyst for research

We work closely with universities to provide access to our collections as source material and inspiration for a wide range of academic research. We have particularly significant relationships with Newcastle University and Northumbria University. Examples of recent projects include:

Two Collaborative PhD students worked with Tyne & Wear Archives. The first, with Durham University, explored the growth and decline of North East Jewish communities from 1881-2000‌. The second, with Northumbria University, explored the Bewick-Beilby Enterprise and Newcastle print history‌.

A rare 2,500-year-old carved Etruscan egg from the Shefton Collection at the Great North Museum: Hancock underwent analysis at the Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron - a giant microscope. The synchrotron radiation analysis aimed to determine if ancient paint pigments were preserved on the egg. Initial results were promising, revealing traces of iron, copper, and arsenic, indicating the presence of original pigments.