Museum Booster

The white paper is finally here.
After Museum Leadership House Gathering and ICOM INTERCOM Plenary Session in Dubai — Entering 2030: Museums in the Age of Quantum Change is now available for download.

Before publishing, we asked you: “Which skills will matter most for museum leadership in 2030?”. Your comments and reflections shaped this white paper.

This report explores how museums are becoming early indicators of wider societal tensions: political volatility, data overload, climate pressure, and rising inequality. But it also shows where new opportunities lie — from wellbeing partnerships to technology used with purpose, from plural narratives to leadership built on ethical clarity and collective intelligence.

A big thanks to ICOM INTERCOM, our host Anne-Marie Gilis, Museum Leadership House participants, ICOM INTERCOM plenary session participants, and the LinkedIn community.

You have helped us push this work forward.
We are excited to share it with you — and even more excited to see where the conversation goes next.

Link in bio ☝🏻

Which skill will matter most for museum leaders in 2030? Share your view in the comments.

Today at the INTERCOM–ICOM session at Dubai Expo, moderated by Dr Anne-Marie Gilis, Tykhonova Olga and Sofia Widmann shared the first findings from the Museum Leadership House meeting held on 10 November (see photos in the carousel).

Using the Dubai Future Foundation’s Global 50 foresight framework, introduced by Patrick Noack, twenty-five museum leaders explored how major global forces are reshaping our sector:

• Funding pressure and political conditions
• Neutrality and rising polarisation
• Access, inequality and contested audiences
• Climate stress and the overuse of heritage
• Leadership capacity and organisational complexity

These forces now define the environment in which every museum director works.

The group then moved into opportunity areas: technology with purpose, museums beyond walls, co-creation, intergenerational futures, wellbeing, philanthropy as ecosystem, and human-centred organisational design.

We closed with the Museum Leadership 2030 Framework, outlining the mindsets, skills, and knowledge future leaders will need.

Now we would like to hear from you.
The full Museum Leadership House report will be published on 19 November. Before finalising it, we are gathering insights from the wider museum community.

Which skill will matter most for museum leaders in 2030?
Add your thoughts in the comments — selected ideas will be included in the publication.

The 2025 edition of Museum Leadership House will centre on three main pillars that are reshaping the museum field.

🔑The first concerns leadership: how the role of the director is shifting, which skills are becoming essential and how authority may need to be shared rather than held.

🔑 The second addresses the public mandate. In an era marked by mistrust, polarisation and contested narratives, the question is how museums act responsibly without retreating into neutrality or drifting into activism by default.

🔑 The third looks at work itself. Automation, AI and structural fatigue are changing how teams function, how wellbeing is understood and how institutions remain resilient.

Academic advisory support comes from the Institute for Digital Culture (), support in dissemination from

Museum Leadership House returns on 10 November 2025 in Dubai!

Twenty-five museum directors and rising figures will gather in a domestic setting chosen to create discussion about the sector’s future. Academic guidance is provided by the Institute for Digital Culture at the , and dissemination is supported by .

In the upcoming weeks, we will share the themes under consideration, the speakers involved and the shape of the programme.

READ | Museums after dark

Across Europe, museums are rethinking Friday nights. Live music, workshops, and cultural partnerships are turning them into places to gather — not just to observe.

📊 In Copenhagen, one museum attracts more than 4,000 visitors on average, nearly half of them first-time guests. In Vienna, a similar programme draws up to 2,000 people each week.

Why it matters: Museums are moving beyond counting visitors. They are asking how these nights shape well-being, community, and cultural participation.
The Future Museum project is following these experiments to understand how museums can play a larger role in cultural life after hours.

👉 What role should museums play at night?

Witch trials, murders and other attractions of Salem.