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

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.

Caro Howell

Caro Howell has been Director General of IWM (Imperial War Museums) since May 2023. She is a Trustee of the IWM Development Trust and Vice President of the American Air Museum in Britain. Previously, she was Director of the Foundling Museum in 2011-23. As Head of Education & Public Events at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2005-11, she oversaw the construction and programming of major new education spaces and project galleries, as part of the Gallery’s expansion. At Tate in 1993-2003, she joined Tate Modern’s set-up team in 1997 and formulated its access and audience development strategy, where her work won a BAFTA. She has also worked as an independent museum education consultant in the UK and abroad. She is Chair of the National Trust’s Collections and Interpretation Advisory Group, a trustee of the Holburne Museum, Autograph and the UK Supreme Court Arts Trust, a member of the Two Temple Place Exhibition Advisory Group, the Arts Council England RCEWA Council, and the Women Leaders in Museums Network, an advisor to the Huguenot Museum and a mentor for Arts Emergency. She has also been a member of advisory groups for The Charterhouse, The Royal Society of Antiquaries and Art on the Underground, and a trustee of the experimental theatre company Shunt. She was awarded an MBE for services to museums in 2022.

Mary Colwell

Mary Colwell is a leading voice in nature education and conservation, renowned for her successful campaign to establish a GCSE in Natural History in England. This qualification aims to reconnect young people with the natural world, promoting environmental awareness and stewardship through formal education.

An award-winning author and former BBC Natural History Unit producer, Mary has dedicated her career to bridging the gap between people and nature. She founded the charity Curlew Action and chairs the Curlew Recovery Partnership, working to protect one of the UK’s most threatened bird species. Her contributions have been recognised with numerous awards, including the RSPB Medal and the ZSL Silver Medal for services to conservation and nature education.

Olivette Otele

Professor Olivette Otele is a Professor of the Legacies and Memory of Slavery at SOAS, University of London. She holds a PhD from Universite Paris IV-La Sorbonne, on the subject of European colonial and post-colonial History, and is a Fellow and a Vice President of the Royal Historical Society.

Olivette’s current research centres around transnational history and in particular the link between history, collective memory and geopolitics in relation to British and French colonial pasts. She charts and analyses the ways in which Britain and France have been addressing questions of citizenship, race and identity through the politics of remembrance. She also enquires into the value of public gestures, the meaning of public history and the impact of cultural memory.

Professor Otele has been the recipient of several national and international prestigious research grants. A broadcaster (BBC radio and TV), she also is a regular contributor to the press.

Bridget McKenzie

Conference Access

Genderless toilets are available on each floor of the Leeds City Museum and Leeds Art Gallery. Facilities in the toilets include rails at the sides of the toilet and basin, emergency alarms and fire alarms with flashing lights. To find out more the venue accessibility, read the accessibility guide on the Leeds City Museum website.

Conference Hotel

We’re delighted to have secured a special delegate rate at the Radisson Blu Leeds City Centre for attendees of GEM Conference 2025. A limited number of rooms (60 in total) are available on a first come, first served basis at the exclusive rate of £136 per night, including breakfast.

To book at this special rate, please call the hotel directly and quote the reservation code: GEM0909.