Renaissance Data Collection Hub Results, 2007-2008

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.Renaissance was the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council's (MLA) programme to transform England's regional museums. The programme has received over £300 million since 2002 which has been allocated across nine regional museum hubs. Regional museum hubs are a cluster of four-five museums which receive government investment in order to develop as centres of excellence and as leaders of their regional museum communities. MLA has been gathering data from the nine regional museum hubs from 2002-2003 to 2007-2008. The Renaissance Data Collection is a quarterly return of data from each site participating in the Renaissance in the Regions Programme. The data returns contain information on numbers of: visits; priority group visits; child visits; website visits; school visits; Higher Education visits; adult and child on-site participation; and outreach activity. The data returns support Programme management and monitoring and forms the basis of the Renaissance Museums Performance Indicator statistical series. From the 30th June 2011, the regional Renaissance hub structure ceases to exist. 2011-12 is a transitional year for Renaissance, in which £37.6 million of grant funding, previously known as museum hub funding, has been made available instead directly to 45 museum services. Further information about Renaissance can be found on the MLA's Renaissance Data Collection web page.Main Topics:Data were recorded by hubs and submitted to the MLA on a quarterly basis, following a financial year cycle e.g. Q1 (April to June). Data were submitted in an Excel workbook (Data Collection Template) that consists of six worksheets, covering six different areas of museums activity:Template 1: number of self-directed visits by children and young people in formal educationTemplate 2: number of facilitated visits by children and young people in formal educationTemplate 3: number of instances of children, young people and adults participating in museums’ outreach activitiesTemplate 4: number of instances of teachers in contact with museumsTemplate 5: number of instances of children, young people and adults participating in organised activities at museumsTemplate 6: visits, child visits, web visits and loan venuesWithin each template there are a number of different measures, with hubs reporting on a total of 67 performance indicators. A breakdown of each template measure and accompanying guidelines can be found in the Audience Data Collection Manual 2008