Join us for GEM Conference 2025 (10 – 12 September, Leeds City Museum), where we’ll explore how museum and heritage learning professionals can adapt and innovate in the face of global challenges. This year’s theme focuses on sustainability in its broadest sense – from environmental responsibility to organisational resilience, maintaining wellbeing and creating long term embedded equitable opportunities for communities and the sector.

Through inspiring keynotes, thought-provoking panel discussions and practical workshops, we’ll share tools and strategies to ensure our work remains impactful and resilient.

Secure your Early Bird ticket until 16 June 2025.

Book your place

Call for Papers

We are inviting proposals for member presentations and workshops that align with one or more of the following themes:

• Sustaining Museum Learning Practice
  How can we support the future development of museum learning and ensure individual sustainability for practitioners in the sector? We are looking for proposals that explore strategies for maintaining and developing programmes, prioritising staff wellbeing and addressing financial sustainability in challenging times.
• The Role of Resilience in the Sector and Programming
  How can museums and heritage organisations build resilience in the face of challenges? Share strategies, case studies, and practical tools for navigating uncertainty while maintaining impactful programming.
• Sustainable Community Partnerships
  Explore approaches to building and sustaining meaningful partnerships with communities.
• Environmental Responsibility
  Highlight innovative initiatives and practices that address environmental challenges. From carbon reduction strategies to programming that engages communities in climate action, share how sustainability is being embedded into our work.
• Access and Inclusion
  How can we ensure museum learning is equitable and inclusive for all?

To apply, fill out one of the forms below. The application deadline is Monday 28 April 2025.

Apply to deliver a presentation

Apply to deliver a workshop

Conference Keynotes

Meta Knol

Art historian Meta Knol has a unique profile at the intersection of culture, science and society. As a curator, author, moderator and strategic adviser, she specialises in modern and contemporary art, has curated numerous exhibitions and pioneered debates on museum innovation.

As one of the founders of the Dutch Ministry of the Future, a grassroots movement of long-term, future-focused thinkers and doers, she helps develop new forms of civic design. As director of Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden, she oversaw the comprehensive renewal and the widely acclaimed restoration and expansion of the museum (2019). As director of Leiden European City of Science 2022, a pilot programme of the European Commission, she co-developed a new grassroots model for public engagement with science.

Meta holds various board positions, including at the Dutch Research Agenda and the Rembrandt Association, and serves as chair of the Supervisory Board of the Design Academy Eindhoven. In 2025, her book Handbook for Time Travellers will be published.