Season’s Greetings and Reflections on 2025
Written by Claire Messenger, Manager, International Training Programme
We wish the global network of ITP fellows and followers Seasons Greetings and all the best for the coming year!
Wow – what a year 2025 has been!! Busy, fulfilling and fun – this has been a bumper year for the International Training Programme team with an annual summer programme and a range of legacy projects which meant we were able to meet new colleagues and re-connect with ITP fellows from across the global sector.
ITP Fellows at the British Museum Archaeological Research Collection
The Annual Programme
The 19th annual ITP programme brought 20 culture and heritage professional together from 5 July to 17 August. The British Museum and eight UK Partner Museums welcomed 20 fellows from 18 countries, including Brazil, China, Colombia, Cyprus, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Oman, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Syria, Thailand, Türkiye, Ukraine, the US and Vietnam, to the UK.
This year we welcomed four new countries to our growing global network – being joined by fellows from Ecuador, Syria, Thailand and Ukraine for the first time – new connections that we hope will develop into a long-term, sustainable and rewarding partnerships.
The ITP network now boasts 393 museum professionals from 65 countries!
We had a wonderful group of fellows for 2025 and we are already looking forward to working with them – and introducing them to the rest of the network – in the future through our legacy projects and programmes.
Senior Fellow Chantal Umuhoza, Curator, Rwanda Cultural Heritage Academy (Rwanda, ITP Fellow 2018).
Our Senior Fellow this year was Chantal Umuhoza, Curator, Rwanda Cultural Heritage Academy (Rwanda, ITP Fellow 2018) and it was a truly a delight to have her join us over the summer.
Beyond the Annual Programme
This year we have been able to support members of our ITP network through our Research and Conference Grants. In 2025 the ITP has given grants for fellows to attend conferences covering a diverse range of topics including Regenerative Museums for Sustainable Futures; Archaeology of the Bone Objects in the Eastern Mediterranean, Near East, the Black Sea area and the Balkans during the Hellenistic, Roman and Early Byzantine periods and the World Archaeological Congress.
We were also able to support fellows to take part in the ICOM General Conference 2025, Dubai on The Future of Museums in Rapidly Changing Communities. Dubai seemed to be quite the ITP reunion – we wish we had been there too 😊
We have also supported two wonderful research projects looking at How the social and moral issues along with vibrant climate of India transformed significantly the British palette of Turner, Blake and Stubbs during the 18th & 19th centuries and Establishing the Effects of Climate Change on National Museums of Kenya. Tangible Heritage for Sustainability, Adaption and Resilience; Integrating Climate Action Strategies.
The 12th issue of the International Training Programme annual newsletter, asked our global network to focus on the important issue of accessibility and inclusion in their museums, a theme chosen and developed by our ITP Senior Fellow 2024, Yanoa Pomalima Carrasco, Museums and Heritage Consultant (Peru, ITP 2022). You responded in amazing numbers – the newsletter 2025 was our biggest issue yet – sharing fascinating, creative stories from many museums around the world who are working with their communities to develop and grow their audiences.
2025 saw the vital work of the ITP Advisory Board continue and develop. Board members – fellows from Armenia, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Kenya, Nepal, Peru, Romania and Rwanda – have worked to restructure the Board to make it more reactive, dynamic and productive. As a result, the Board are now working in smaller groups to deliver projects to help celebrate our anniversary in 2026. These projects will focus on a new ITP publication, a Global object in focus online exhibition, the formation of ITP networking groups based around climate and sustainability and restitution and repatriation and plans for an ITP conference. We are looking forward to sharing more on those with you all in the New Year.
ITP Advisory Board in Liverpool.
In April, the ITP team were delighted to travel to Liverpool – with our wonderful ITP Advisory Board – for the ICOM UK conference 2025. The theme of the conference was Regenerative museums for sustainable futures which focused on how museums can address climate and social emergencies. Museum colleagues from around the world shared practical examples of regenerative development in museums, emphasizing moving beyond sustainability and net-zero goals toward restoring ecosystems, rebalancing value systems, and using cultural heritage to foster climate action. Speakers demonstrated how museums can act as regenerative forces, engaging communities in solutions that integrate sustainability, resilience, and ancestral knowledge to combat environmental collapse and climate injustice. The conference was fantastic, very inspiring, but there was also time for some fun with a group of fellows visiting Anfield, Liverpool FC’s icon stadium 😊
ITP Fellows at St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff.
In October 2025 we invited six ITP Fellows from Egypt, Ghana, Iraq, Lebanon, and Ukraine to join us at the Museums Association (MA) conference and exhibition, Cardiff. The conference took place on 7 – 9 October at St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff and focused on Perthyn – Belonging, looking at how museums and their collections and stories belong to everyone, and all communities have the right to representation, participation and agency.
There was also the opportunity for participants to spend time at museums, galleries, and heritage sites in and around Cardiff, to learn more about the nation of Wales and to enjoy some – to be honest, a lot of – delicious Welsh cakes!!
Siddhant Shah (India, ITP Fellow 2021).
2025 also saw the culmination of an amazing co-creation project with Siddhant Shah (India, ITP Fellow 2021). Working with colleagues in the Department of Asia and Learning and National Partnerships (LNP), Siddhant delivered a project centred on the beautiful exhibition Ancient India; living traditions which focused on the creation of a sensory trail for autistic adults visiting the exhibition. Siddhant delivered his project in August and we were delighted he was also able to join us for the part of this summer’s annual programme. Currently Siddhant is working on a new page for the ITP website which will share information, news and tips and hints for accessible practice.
Doris Kamuye, Museum Curator at Malindi Museum, National Museums of Kenya (Kenya, ITP 2024).
And we’d like to thank Doris Kamuye, Museum Curator at Malindi Museum, National Museums of Kenya for delivering an online presentation as part of an ongoing partnership between the University of Nottingham Museum and the International Training Programme. Doris was the fourth in a series of ITP Fellows who have been part of the Lakeside Arts public programme of cultural talks and focused on Malindi Museum & Gedi World Heritage Site. I was delighted to be able to join Clare Pickersgill, Keeper, University of Nottingham Museum at Lakeside Arts to enjoy Doris’s talk, which was very much appreciated by a packed auditorium.
In ITP News!!
Frances Carey (Chair, MLvM) with the ITP Fellows 2025 at Kenwood House.
2025 marked an important year for the International Training Programme. The Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust (MLvMCT) – our major funder since 2015 – has generously enabled us to plan ahead with confidence as we delivered annual programmes and developed new and engaging legacy opportunities over the past decade. But as our MLvMCT funding comes to an end, the Museum is delighted that the ITP has attracted renewed major funding for a further five years, taking it up to 2030, with generous support from an anonymous donor.
We were also thrilled to welcome a fourth member to our team. Caitlin Noble joined us as ITP Assistant in September and has been focused on learning all about the ITP programme, projects, communications and most importantly, our network. Meanwhile Amelia, who is now our ITP Coordinator (legacy projects), has been working hard gathering information on what our ITP network wants and needs from our legacy work over the coming years. We will be looking forward to sharing those findings – and the resulting projects – with you through 2026. Congratulations to them both in their new roles!!
Finally, we’d like to thank everyone who has supported the ITP in 2025 whether this was through their generous financial support or through sharing their knowledge, collections and spaces. The International Training Programme wouldn’t be possible without them and we are so grateful for the opportunities their support gives us to deliver both the annual programme and our legacy projects.
ITP Fellows 2025 at Stonehenge.
You can read all of our reports, the newsletter, our evaluation and our fellows’ reflections and updates from 2025 on our ITP website.
Warm wishes to all!
Claire, George, Amelia and Caitlin