Mentoring at Emilia-Romagna’s Sistema Museale Regionale

The Cultural Heritage Department at the Regione Emilia-Romagna organises and manages the regional museum accreditation process for the Sistema Museale Regionale (Regional Museum Network), which automatically makes them accredited members of the Sistema Museale Nazionale (National Museum Network) too.

In order to assist with the accreditation process, the Regione Emilia-Romagna asked BAM! Strategie Culturali to get involved in a mentoring process to improve the skills of regional museum operators and make the accreditation procedures clearer and more accessible.

Museums that want to be admitted to the network must demonstrate that they meet certain quality standards in areas such as collection management, museum accessibility, internal expertise and community relations, in order to achieve a pass score.

Accreditation applications are made through a specific online platform created by the Regione.

The Regione needed to improve the structure and organisation of the accreditation platform content with a view to adapting it to the different museum types in the region and to boost the skills of museum operators in line with ministerial requests (LUQ Uniform Quality Levels).

The accreditation platform was first and foremost tested by a number of operators selected from among various regional museums. After personally analysing the structure and content of the platform, BAM! Strategie Culturali organised a focus group with these museum operators to gather their comments and guide the Regione Emilia-Romagna’s Cultural Heritage Department towards the most effective changes to be made.

Three training workshops were also organised at the same time, accessible free of charge to regional museum operators and focusing on subjects of interest and in keeping with the accreditation process.

The first workshop was on digital communication, the second on the social impact of museums (organised as part of the European project MOI! Museums of Impact, in which BAM! Strategie Culturali is the Italian partner) and the third on stakeholder mapping and the necessary tools for co-designing together.