Museum professionals put at risk by Covid. ICOM raises the alarm

A year and a half after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the International Council of Museums (ICOM ), the world’s leading body representing museums, releases a new report (its third) on the topic of museums, museum professionals and Covid-19. The first report, published just over a year ago, presented a dire situation for museums and museum professionals around the world. With nearly 95 percent of institutions forced to close to safeguard the well-being of staff and visitors, the sector was facing serious economic, social and cultural repercussions. The second global survey, conducted in early fall 2020, pictured a much more diverse situation for museums, with strong regional differences in opening rates and economic impact. One of the most interesting data, often the focus of discussions about the sector and Covid-19, was the massive shift to digital activities. This trend, which increased sharply between the first two surveys, raised questions about the maturity and sustainability of these practices in the future.

“With the aim of analyzing the evolution of this and other important innovations in the museum sector,” ICOM points out, “we have therefore launched a third survey, one year after the publication of the first one. This third ICOM global survey, open from April 15 to May 29, 2021, investigated a scenario that is certainly still one of crisis, but is also increasingly described as ’the new normal’.As with the second survey, we kept most sections unchanged, allowing us to assess the main trends of the crisis caused by the pandemic and its perception by museum professionals. Other questions considered possible future scenarios and how museums are preparing for a new beginning. As this is the third ICOM report, we decided to present trends in responses over time, rather than focusing on regional comparisons, to show how the situation has evolved over the past 18 months. For this reason, the data represent aggregate results and should be interpreted with caution, taking into account the profound differences between museums around the world.”

The report analyzes 840 responses from museums and museum professionals on five continents. The data are not representative of the entire museum landscape, but some useful insights can be gleaned from the responses to understand the climate of uncertainty about the future of museums and the need for governments to act quickly to ensure a future for these institutions and the heritage they preserve, as museums are an essential part and vital element of their communities.

Overall, the report finds that the situation for museums in the spring of 2021 deteriorated slightly from the period between September and October 2020, but inconsistently: while the vast majority of museums in Africa and the Pacific were open, in Europe and North America museums had just begun to reopen their doors. At the local level, the situation in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Arab countries was also uneven. Again, the shift to digital content continued on a large scale. As noted in the second report, museums that rely primarily on private funds or direct income have shown greater responsiveness on this front. Not surprisingly, large museums are better equipped than small and medium-sized ones when it comes to reaching their audiences at a distance, as smaller ones need adequate support in their digital transition in order to develop human and financial resources as well as specific skills. The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent blockages led to a reduced presence of on-site staff compared to the second survey, but more importantly to an increase in measures that negatively impacted the economic stability of museum professionals. Specifically, the percentage of participants reporting that employees have been laid off has steadily increased from 5.8 percent in May 2020 to 9.6 percent one year later. This means that nearly one in ten of the participating museums had to lay off staff members due to the crisis.

The situation for museum professionals remains critical: 15 percent of participants said they had been laid off due to the Covid-19 pandemic: this is 5 percent less since spring 2020, but still an alarming number according to ICOM. Following the evolution of the three reports, it is possible to observe a sharp decline in the percentage of museum-related work in the overall income of freelancers. The percentage of workers for whom consulting for museums is at least 50 percent of income has dropped from 56.9 percent to 32.5 percent. Without adequate support for the sector, ICOM points out, there is a real risk of losing highly skilled and specialized professionals who will go on to work in other fields. Not least because there are 60 percent of professionals who say they have not had access to emergency forms of financial support.

Again, comparing the data from the three surveys, there is a positive trend for all categories considered. In particular, the percentage of museums facing permanent closure has decreased, from 12.9 percent to 4.1 percent. However, without adequate financial support measures, the pandemic will still have major repercussions in terms of reduced operational capacity, affecting opening hours, ability to organize exhibitions and activities. This will have further negative consequences on access to culture and the well-being of the communities served by these institutions. Museums are struggling to adapt their business models to this emergency situation and need support in developing the necessary skills to do so. The majority of participants, 59.1 percent, responded that they have not experimented with new sources of revenue: these are mostly small and medium-sized museums.

In general, security and asset preservation procedures in museums continued throughout the lockdown: the percentage of positive responses remained similar across the three surveys, with about 80 percent of participants or more feeling confident about these two key aspects of muse management. The two data points of greatest concern, with results just under 80 percent, are the maintenance of crime prevention systems and the control of environmental conditions.

Museum professionals put at risk by Covid. ICOM raises the alarm

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