Since 2011 Happy Museum (HM) has brought together thinking around well-being and sustainability and investigated the particular role of museums in supporting individual, organisational and societal resilience.  It places its work firmly in the context of, and in response to, current global challenges such as climate change and social justice.  In this context we believe […]

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At our Symposium (2014), Founder Director Tony Butler presented a paper – Stewardship, Equity, Flow – reviewing the first three years of the Happy Museum project. ‘As it completes its third iteration, Happy Museum will keep asking people in museums how prepared they are to place themselves alongside the rest of civil society to work […]

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On Wednesday 2nd April, Mandy Barnett, Happy Museum Evaluator, presented on Happy Museum to the Warwick Commission on the Future of Cultural Value.   The commission aims to undertake a comprehensive and holistic investigation into the future of cultural value, gathering together the evidence and arguments to energise the debates about the future of investment and […]

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Proving the Cultural Value of the Arts for Health Methods & Analysis Report for the Happy Museum: Cultural Value & Making, Authors C.White, A.Oddey, H.Sowter 2014, University of Derby. Proving-Cultural-Value-of-the-Arts-for-Health

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Happy Museum were instrumental in initiating this APPG session, which investigated the role that evidence about wellbeing plays in shaping policy on cultural activities.   Witnesses and members at the House of Commons were: Tony Butler, Happy Museum Daniel Fujiwara, London School of Economics and Happy Museum Charlotte Jones, Independent Theatre Council Alan Davey, Arts Council […]

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A few weeks ago, at the MA Conference in Liverpool, the Happy Museum participated in a fascinating panel discussion.  The session, led by Maurice Davies, ued the MA’s Museums Change Lives as a starting point for imagining the future or museums.  Panellists were invited to imagine a new city was being constructed in the UK, […]

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  The Happy Museum Project are pleased to announce the publication of our first major Learning and Evaluation report. One of the principles of Happy Museum is to ‘measure what matters’, and the report was undertaken in that spirit.It is about learning as much as advocacy, and so explores challenges openly. It aims to find […]

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It seems that across Western Europe communities and municipalities are reassessing what it means to have a good life. This week I was invited to Piedmont in Italy to speak at BESAlessandria to talk about the Museum of East Anglian Life and the Happy Museum. Mine was one of a series of talks held throughout […]

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On April 24th, ‘Happiness Economist‘ Daniel Fujiwara was interviewed by The Voice of Russia World Service in a special programme on Maria Miller’s recent speech on value and the arts entitled, ‘Culture Secretary: Arts Must Prove their Worth.’ Fujiwara discusses his recent Happy Museum Project research report on Museums and Happiness, which can be found […]

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Bees on the roof of Manchester Art Gallery, Love Food Hate Waste Roman food recipes from the Grosvenor Museum in Chester and monitoring electricity use in the Victorian buildings of Warrington Museum are all sustainability actions being taken by Museums in the North West.  On 16 April the Museum Development North West Sustainability conference at […]

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