Prize criteria and timetable

The Art Fund Prize 2012 is now closed to applications.

What are we looking for?

The single award of £100,000 will be presented in June 2012 to the museum or gallery whose entry, in the opinion of the judges:

• demonstrates excellence, originality and imagination;
• has the capacity to promote wider public appreciation of museums and galleries and their collections;
• has clearly won the support and enthusiasm of its visitors and users;
• extends public understanding of works of art and othermuseum objects, or demonstrates imaginative use of artists and designers to interpret collections;
• is likely to provide a lasting legacy.
  

What kind of projects?

We welcome entries from across the whole range of museum and gallery activities, including (but not restricted to):

• new exhibitions, buildings or refurbishments
• significant acquisitions, their interpretation and use
• education, audience development and outreach work
• collection conservation projects involving the public
• imaginative use of new technology
• initiatives that engage with contemporary issues.

When should projects have been completed?

You can submit an entry for any kind of museum and gallery project as long as it was completed, or mainly took place, during the calendar year 2011.
Although your entry should be for a defined project, the Judges will assess how it has contributed to the museum or gallery’s work as a whole.

We recognise that some kind of projects – such as educational initiatives and other activity programmes – cannot be ‘visited’ in the conventional sense, so it is important to think about how you would present such a project to the Judges and to the media if long-listed.

Experience has shown that it is difficult for the Judges to assess temporary exhibitions that are no longer running at the time of assessment. The Museum Prize Trustees have therefore agreed that to be eligible for consideration, temporary exhibitions should be running during the judging period, which commences in March 2012, and at the time of the award in June 2012.

Is your organisation eligible?

The Prize is open to all museums and galleries in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. We normally expect applicants to be participants in the Museum Registration/Accreditation Scheme operated by Arts Council England.

Exceptions may be considered where organisations are in the public sector, or have charitable status, and whose activities are based on the care and interpretation of collections of historical, artistic or scientific interest. The Trustees’ decision on eligibility is final. Only one entry may be submitted per individual museum or gallery. Where an organisation operates several museums and galleries, an entry may be submitted for each, but in drawing up the long list not more than one entry will be selected from the same multi-site service. Entries may be submitted on behalf of collaborative projects between one or more organisations, but the entrant will be taken to be the lead museum or gallery ‘in association with’ its partners.

If you are still unsure whether your project or organisation is eligible, please get in touch. We are keen to encourage as many credible entries as possible and would much rather work with you to find a way for your project or initiative to be considered than have you rule yourselves out at the start. The Prize Administrator, Maddy Pickard, can be contacted on 07966 319 279  or info@artfundprize.org.uk

Our conditions

Before you submit an entry, please consider whether you will be able to meet our conditions if you are long-listed. We will ask long-listed organisations:

• that make an admission charge, to offer free entry to Art Fund members who have a National Art Pass for the duration of the competition, i.e. from the date of the long list announcement at the end of February to the end of June 2012.
• that make a charge for temporary exhibitions, to offer Art Fund members who have a National Art Passfree entry to charging temporary exhibitions during the same period, or at least give them as generous a reduction as they offer to other supporters, such as their Friends.
• to display an Art Fund leaflet stand and posters at least for the duration of the competition;
• to provide us with feedback at the end of the competition to help us assess the impact of the Prize and to improve our processes where necessary.

How to apply

For each entry you should send us:

• a completed application form;
• a supporting statement of not more than 2,000 words;
• a minimum of four and maximum of six high-quality photographs.
• You may also send us supporting material relevant to the project, e.g. marketing materials and publications. We will accept a maximum of five pieces of material per application.  The more information that you can send us electronically the better – please submit as much as possible online. This makes sharing information with the Judges much easier. But we accept that some information will always have to be sent as hard copy. Please do not send material in larger than A4 format.If you want such material to form part of your submission and to be seen by all the Judges you should supply eight copies.

We regret that we are unable to return copies of application materials.

The closing date for submissions is 4pm on Thursday 1 December 2011.

Application form

Please submit the online application form covering both your project details and supporting statement. You will be able to print a copy of the completed form.

Please contact info@artfundprize.org.uk if you are unable to access the online application form and we will provide you with an alternative.  Please check well before the closing date that your computer is able to access the application form -  we can take no responsibility for late submissions due to technical difficulties or access problems.

Supporting statement

Your statement of not more than 2,000 words should provide more detailed information about the project and why you believe it meets the criteria for the Art Fund Prize.

Photographs

Please supply all photographs electronically in high quality JPG format via the online application portal. You give us the right to use the photographs you send us, so you should ensure you have permission to use the photographs before you send them to us.

Hard copy supporting material

If you are unable to supply your supporting material (a maximum of five pieces) electronically, please send eight copies to:

The Administrator
The Art Fund Prize 2012
24 Calvin Street
London E1 6NW

Please mark the front of the package or envelope with the name of your organisation.

What happens next?

All applications received are assessed by the Museum Prize Trustees, the Art Fund Director and the Prize Administrator, who recommend a list of around twenty-five entries for consideration by the panel of seven independent judges. From these the judges select a long list of ten.

The public announcement of the long list will be made towards the end of February 2012.

Following announcement of the long list, each of the candidates will be visited by at least four judges. The Prize Administrator will liaise with each organisation to agree a convenient date. There will be one official visit to each museum on the long list, but additional visits may be made by judges privately and without notice.

If you are long-listed

This will be a great opportunity to increase awareness of your organisation and your work on both the local and national level. We will provide a PR briefing pack and individual support from our PR team to help you to make the most of this.

If you haven’t supplied these already, we will ask you for at least 4 high-quality, captioned photographs illustrating aspects of your project. High-quality photographic images are essential in promoting the long list to the media, so we urge you to consider using professional photographers where possible.

The Art Fund will be in touch with each long listed organisation to create a communications plan to press, museum visitors and key stakeholders. Being long listed and short listed provides opportunity to talk about your work in new and existing audiences and the Art Fund is keen to help you make the most of these. For 2012, the Art Fund will be putting the spotlight on a museum a week from a few weeks after the long list announcement until the short list announcement so that each long listed museum is given a moment when the focus is on it. The Art Fund will provide marketing and communications support and collateral.

We strongly recommend that long-listed museums identify a ‘champion’ – someone well-known to local or national media – who will publicly support and endorse your project and generate media interest.

Short list

When the long list visits are complete the judges will choose a short list of four museums or galleries to go forward as finalists. The short list will be announced towards the end of April. A final round of judges' visits will take place so that by the end of the process, all judges will have visited all four finalists.

Shortlisted organisations will be asked to tell the Judges what they plan to do with the Prize Money should they be successful in winning the 2012 Prize. We ask that the Prize money be used for public benefit. The use of the Prize money will be one of the many factors taken into consideration by the Judges in selecting the winner of the 2012 Prize

Winner

The winner will be announced at an evening reception in London during June 2012. They will receive £100,000 and will be the holder for one year of the Prize trophy.

The decision of the judging panel is final.

For further information and guidance contact info@artfundprize.org.uk

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