Open Grants

These grants are to support organisational development that helps museums to meet or go beyond the requirements of the Accreditation Standard.

By organisational development we mean interventions that might:

• build your museum’s capabilities and capacity to achieve your long-term goals
• improve performance of how you plan for and deliver some of your services
• support testing, trialling or changing approaches to the way you work
• enable your workforce to flourish, thrive and have meaning in their work

All projects must also demonstrate how they deliver against the Arts Council England’s Investment Principles:

• Ambition and Quality
• Dynamism
• Environmental Responsibility
• Inclusivity & Relevance

Open Grants Round 5 opens on 5 January 2026 and closes at 4pm on 17 April 2026.  

The following museums are eligible to apply for an Open Grant:

• Museums in the north of England which are Accredited, hold provisional status, or are formally Working Towards Accreditation.
• Museums that are not Accredited, or not formally Working Towards it, can be part of a project involving a partnership of museums, but an Accredited museum must be the lead partner.

The following museums are not eligible:

• National Portfolio Organisations and DCMS sponsored National Museums, English Heritage and National Trust sites and unaccredited museums, though they may be part of a partnership project.

The maximum amount an individual museum can apply for is £5,000. Multisite organisations, partnerships and consortiums can apply for £7,500 where the funding will benefit more than one Accredited museum, including those officially Working Towards Accreditation.

All projects funds must be spent and completed with final reports and invoices submitted to MD North by 26 February 2027.

The full guidance is available here. Please read this guidance before applying.  To submit your application for Round 5, use this online form.  An offline copy of the application form with advice on how to complete the questions can be found here. Please do not submit this version, it is for planning only, please submit your application on the online form.   

If you need any support with completing your application, please contact your Museum Development Adviser or Kaye Hardyman, kaye.hardyman@museumdevelopmentnorth.org.uk.