Workshops and programmes

Workshops and programmes
Online webinar series and in-person workshops, for groups of professionals and teams
Sustainable development is not just something that can be taught: the best way to learn about it is to experience it, to do it. This is more than one-off presentations at conferences, or the odd workshop. I means working with people and groups, to explore with them what they are already doing, what they want to do, what they can do, what is most worth doing, and making plans and taking actions to do it. I work with goal-based approaches, the intention being that people can leave programmes either having done some of ‘the work’, or a direction of what they are going to do.
I have been commissioned to develop and run lots of workshops and programmes to strengthen people’s and groups actions for sustainable development. While in-person workshops tend to be one-offs, online programmes lend themselves very well to sustainable development action.
Workshops and programmes typically draw on the open access Curating Tomorrow guides, helping you make more use of them.
Typically, programmes are 4-7 webinars long. They are a process of ‘getting up to speed’ on what sustainable development is (and what it is not), usually including some element of a talk and breakout rooms and discussion, and activity between webinars.

Working with the SDGs
Example programme: Latvian Museums Association (2020), series of seven webinars
Example programme: National Trust Conservators (2023-4), series of seven webinars
Example programme: Association of Research Libraries (US and Canada) (2024), in-person talk, workshops, and series of seven webinars
Example programme: Group for Education in Museums (GEM) (2021), two webinars as part of the COVID Cultural Recovery Programme
Environmental goals and action
Example programme: L’Internationalé (2023-4), six webinars for L’Internationalé member institutions
Human rights and human rights-based approaches
Example programme: Museums Galleries Scotland staff development programme (2022) of four webinars, to empower staff to understand and use rights-based approaches.

Climate action workshops
Example programme: An in-person workshop for the conference Stemming the Tide, at the Smithsonian Institution in 2020, on museums and collections for climate action.
Example programme: Online workshops developed as part of Reimagining Museums for Climate Action in 2022, for the Association of independent Museums, Group for Education in Museums, ICOM UK, and UCL museums.
Example programme: In 2019, as part of COP25 (Madrid), I co-organised a workshop for Spanish museum workers interested in sustainable development and climate action. The workshop was held at the National Museum of Decorative Arts, and was co-organised with Paloma Muñoz-Campos García, the Head of Conservation at the Museum.
Example programmes: In-person workshops for Irish Museums Association (2023), SHARE Museums East (2023), Museum Development East Midlands (2022)
Disaster Risk Reduction
Two online workshops with the Bavarian Museums Association (2022)
In-person DRR workshop with Latvian museum professionals in Riga, supported by the British Council Latvia and UNESCO Latvia (2023)
In the past, I have developed capacity building programmes for natural history curators.
How Curating Tomorrow can support you:
Curating Tomorrow can help turn concerns or ideas into concrete plans and actions, using sustainable development frameworks and approaches.
The approach depends on the needs of the organisation[s]: you may want to:
- build partnerships between staff or institutions,
- or work on a common challenge,
- create a plan together
- set priorities and identify targets and indicators to benchmark activity and progress
- turn the plan into action
- strengthen your ability to tell your story in sustainable development terms
Sustainable development is a capacity-building approach: it involves people strengthening their focus, setting goals and actions, finding tools and support, and doing the work, and telling the story.
Workshops and development programmes are typically not one-off workshops, but series of 4-7 events, usually online.