V&A UK

In fulfilling its role as a National Museum, the V&A aims to reach and involve people wherever they live. This is just some of the nationwide activity the Museum undertakes with museums, local authorities, universities and schools, charities and community groups.

The V&A is committed to sharing to its collections and expertise throughout the UK through a variety of partnerships and programmes.

The V&A’s relationships fall into two main types:

1) A limited number of high profile partnerships with formal agreements. The V&A provides content and expertise to these organistions.

V&A at Dundee
Design Dundee Limited, a partnership between the V&A, the University of Dundee, the University of Abertay Dundee, Dundee City Council and Scottish Enterprise, is developing Scotland's leading centre for design.

Find out more about V&A at Dundee

Museums Sheffield
The V&A and Museums Sheffield established a formal partnership for the development of the Millenium Gallery in Sheffield in 1999. The partnership continues through exhibitions, curatorial and learning projects, and staff development.

Find out more about our partnership with Museums Sheffield

V&A and RIBA Architecture Partnership
The V&A and the Royal Instiute of British Architects (RIBA) have come together to promote the understanding and enjoyment of architecture.

Find out more about the V&A and RIBA Architecture Partnership

2) Alliances with a wider number of organisations across the cultural sector, both long standing and new, working in many different ways.

Areas of Activity

The Purchase Grant Fund
This is a government fund, administered by the V&A as part of its nationwide work.

The annual grants budget is currently £600,000.

The Fund supports the acquisition of objects relating to the arts, literature and history by non-national museums, record offices and specialist libraries in England and Wales.

Find out more about the Purchase Grant Fund

Loans
Lending objects to other museums ensures that V&A collections reach a wider audience. The V&A seeks to make borrowing as straightforward as possible. In any one year, some 2,000 V&A objects can be seen in many venues throughout the UK.

Find out more about loans to other organisations

Touring exhibitions
Over 450,000 visits are made to V&A UK touring exhibitions each year. Touring exhibitions are perhaps the Museum’s most high profile off-site activity, enabling as many people as possible to engage with the V&A and its collections.

Find out more about exhibitions on tour and available for touring

Find out about Theatre and Performance Collections exhibitions on tour and available for touring

Find out about Museum of Childhood exhibitions on tour and available for touring

Learning
The V&A works with many different educational, cultural and community organisations, both formally and informally to bring long term benefits to the institutions concerned, to the public - internationally and in the UK - and to the wider economy. Design for Life found new ways of engaging young people in design through the use of museum collections as inspiration and contact with professional designers.

Find out more about Design for Life

Supporting collections and research
Knowledge and skills are a vast resource built up by curators, educators, conservators, students and research fellows. Advice is disseminated to government, national and international audiences through publications, touring exhibitions talks, seminars and web resources. These links are both academic and practical, formal and informal.

Find our more about research projects

V&A UK policy documents

View and download copies of the V&A UK strategy and V&A UK reports

Contact

The V&A UK Section is the first point of contact for all queries, comments or proposals on the V&A's UK work.

Telephone: +44 (0)20 7942 2536
E-mail: uksection@vam.ac.uk

This page describes just some of the V&A’s activity in the UK. Find out more about our International work