Center for the Future of Museums
AAM’s Center for the Future of Museums (CFM) engages in research and forecasting to help museums explore the cultural, political, and economic challenges facing society and devise strategies to shape a better tomorrow.
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Exploring the Next Horizon of Museum Practice
Voluntary Repatriation, Restitution, and Reparations
This project explores how museums might build better and stronger relationships with descendant communities. Download the project’s inaugural report, documenting recent trends in museum practice, as well as fifteen papers by diverse authors exploring preferable futures. Made possible with the generous support of the David Berg Foundation.
2024 Forecasting Report
TrendsWatch: Navigating a Volatile Future
This year the report explores volatility—strategic foresight parlance for the speed of change. That speed has been increasing exponentially in recent decades.
- Culture Wars 2.0
- AI Adolescence in Museums
- Decarbonizing the Future
- Dropping the Degree for Museum Work
- Trend Alert: Combating the Loneliness Crisis in Museums
- Digital Twins and Doom Loops
Click here to see all of the TrendsWatch Reports!
New Future of Museums Community on Museum Junction!
Join to swap ideas with fellow futures-minded museum colleagues, share news stories you’ve found that illuminate trends and events, and keep up with the latest news from the Center for the Future of Museums
AAM’s Museum Junction, our online hub of over 50,000 museum professionals, has a specific community for those working in museum finance to connect, share ideas, and swap advice with peers across the field.
These groups are a member benefit, open to all through 2024.
More from the Center for the Future of Museums
The Center for the Future of Museums, in collaboration with our community, works to:
- Monitor cultural, technological, political, and economic trends that matter to museums
- Equip museums to help their communities address future challenges
- Build strong connections among museums and educational, corporate, civic, nonprofit, and government organizations
Learn more about how you can sharpen your strategic foresight skills with the resources and opportunities below.
Dispatches from the Future of Museums
Dispatches from the Future of Museums is a free weekly newsletter with news stories illuminating trends that may impact the field. Fuel your museum’s strategic foresight by thinking about the implications of these “signals,” and the kinds of future they might create.
Bring the Future to Your Museum or Conference
The Center for the Future of Museums’ founder and director Elizabeth Merritt is available for a limited number of engagements each year. For more information about booking Elizabeth and other AAM staff, read about our current areas of focus for lectures and workshops.
Hone Your Strategic Foresight Skills
Enhanced with worksheets, slide presentations, and games, the AAM Strategic Foresight Toolkit can help you build your foresight skills. Organizations can use this toolkit to train staff in the essential tools of futurism and integrate foresight into planning and operations.
Become an AAM Member Today!
Instantly access hundreds of resources on the future of museums, plus thousands more on topics from education to strategic planning when you become an individual or museum member.
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