News – £4m grant for galleries and museums

Forty-three museums and galleries in England are set to benefit from grants totalling £4m, awarded jointly by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Wolfson Foundation Museums & Galleries Improvement Fund. The grants aim to improve the quality of displays and the visitor experience for capital projects in national and regional museums and galleries.

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London has been awarded a grant of £300,000 towards a £1.5m project to create four new galleries to display highlights from the Museums collection of Asian Buddhist sculpture, including the 16th Century seated figure of Buddha Shakyamuni from Nepal (pictured). The Buddhist Sculpture in Asia galleries form part of the V&As FuturePlan aimed at transforming the Museum through new galleries and displays. This is the sixth year of the current DCMS/Wolfson Foundation Fund which has awarded a total of £20m to institutions around the country since it was established.