• Birmingham Museums Citizens’ Jury won award for inspiring engagement, reflection and debate.

• The jury produced a set of recommendations on the future of the city’s museums for Birmingham Museums Trust.

• Award winners were announced at the Museums Association conference in Cardiff.

Birmingham Museums’ Citizens’ Jury has won the Best Museums Change Lives Project Award, announced at the Museums Association conference 2025.

The Museums Change Lives Awards recognise and celebrate outstanding work by UK museums delivering social impact. The awards promote best practice from museums and individuals that supports communities and engages with contemporary issues.

The Best Museums Change Lives Project Award recognizes outstanding museum projects that promote health and wellbeing, create better places and inspire engagement, reflection and debate,

The UK’s first museum citizens’ jury was commissioned by Birmingham Museums Trust with support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players.

It gave power to people of the city to answer the question: “What does Birmingham need and want from its museums, now and in the future; and what should Birmingham Museums Trust do to make these things happen?”

The jury, which ran from September to November 2024, brought together a diverse group, matched to Birmingham’s demographics across multiple measures, giving them tools to collaborate, with genuine power to shape the trust’s future.

The jurors spent more than 30 hours engaged in learning and collaborative discussions, supported by the community interest company Shared Future, which culminated in a set of collective recommendations to inform the future direction for Birmingham’s museums.

A report detailing the process and the jury’s full set of recommendations is available on the Birmingham Museums Trust website.

Many of the jurors committed to working with Birmingham Museums for an additional 18 months, including contributing to the development of an exhibition about the jury which will go on display at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery in 2026.

The winners of each Museums Change Lives award category were announced at a ceremony on 7 October at the Museums Association’s annual conference at St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff.

Sara Wajid and Zak Mensah, co-chief executives of Birmingham Museums Trust, said:

“We are absolutely delighted that Birmingham Museums’ Citizens’ Jury has been recognised with this award.

“All the more so, because this year’s Museums Association conference theme focuses on perthyn - the Welsh word meaning to belong - and the principle that museums and their collections and stories belong to everyone and that all communities have the right to representation, participation and agency.”