Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Bursaries

The CPD Bursary Scheme opens on 1 April 2025, and is assessed on a rolling basis until 8 December 2025 or earlier if all funds have been allocated.

This grant scheme is being made available to support the museum sector to retain and train its workforce. Applications for funding must support one of three key aims:

• Develop the use of collections in new ways
• Support audience development and increase engagement with under-represented audiences
• Volunteer and workforce development including:
  • Staff and volunteer retention and training.
  • Support for activity to ensure museums can keep curatorial and other collection-centred roles (including collection care, learning and engagement).
  • Support for in-house training and places on training courses and conferences.
  • Wellbeing offers for staff and volunteers.
  • Bespoke personal development opportunities to upskill collection and curatorial staff.
  • Support for new and existing museum networks and partnerships for skills sharing and development of the workforce.

In 2025-26 we are also offering grants for people and/or organisations to learn through experimentation or implementation of new ideas.

Additional consideration will be given to applications from:

• museums with fewer than 50,000 visitors per year seeking to reconnect with visitors or reimagine their future as vital community spaces.
• museums in areas of low cultural community engagement, where the museum is the main cultural offer in a locality.
• museums in urban areas that have niche collections and specific cultural offers outside the larger city institutions.

Available Funding

Grants of up to £500 are available for individual activity. Museums, museum networks and partnerships can apply for up to £2,000 for activity benefiting more than one participant. Higher awards will be made for applications benefiting more than one individual, or where higher costs are essential to the project, e.g. international CPD opportunities.

In addition to paying for development opportunities, such as training and conference places, bursaries can also cover costs for:

• Travel, accommodation and subsistence:
  • Standard fare public transport or £0.45 per mile where cost is incurred – MD North expects that public transport be used wherever possible.
  • Accommodation at £120 per day.
  • Subsistence at £50 per day.
• Reasonable adaptation costs for accessibility or care.
• Reasonable costs associated with caring for dependents e.g. respite care, out-of-hours childcare or other dependent care.

The bursary cannot be used to cover core staff salary costs but can be used to backfill staff undertaking CPD activity.

Eligibility

The CPD Bursary is open to:

• Individuals (including volunteers and freelancers) who work in and with museums in the North of England.
• Organisations operating museums that are Accredited with Arts Council England or Working Towards Accreditation with Arts Council England and located in the north of England.

The CPD Bursary is not open to individuals or organisations where the museum receives funding from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) as National Museums.

How to Apply

Further guidance can be found here – please read this document before applying.  A word version of the application form is here – please only use this form to plan your application – use the online form to apply. The online application form is here and opens on 1 April 2025.  If you need support to complete the application form then please contact Sue Hughes sue.hughes@museumdevelopmentnorth.org.uk.