Museum, Archive and Conservation Award

The Society offers awards of up to £5,000 for a textile related project within the museum, archive and conservation sector.

The Museum, Archive and Conservation Award is designed to support textile related projects within a museum, archive, or conservation studio for an exhibition, publication or conservation project that will help achieve greater awareness and access for the public.

The Textile Society invites applications from all museums, archives and conservation studios with accredited or provisionally accredited status.

Priority will be given to applications from small to medium sized institutions with an annual turnover of less than £750,000 per year.

Deadline details

  • Closing date: 1 June 2024
  • New members: To submit your application by the closing date, please join by 18 May 2024 for your membership number to be activated.
  • This working period is determined by the banks, and is outside the control of the Textile Society.
  • We regret that no refunds can be issued as a result of late submissions.

Award criteria

Applicants must be institutional members of the Textile Society.

The project should have a clearly defined educational objective that will increase public access to a collection or archive.

The project must be supported by a clear project plan, objectives and outcomes.

All applications must have the support of the senior management team or trustees of their institution or organisation.

The Society is looking for creative projects that are viable and have vision.

You may make one application only. This should include:

  1. Online application form, submitted through your institutional Textile Society membership number, and museum or archive accreditation number.
  2. A clear outline of your project in PDF format (do not exceed four sides of A4, max. file size 8MB), including a full budget breakdown indicating how much support you are requesting from the Textile Society, with sources of other funding where appropriate.
    Please include a clear statement of how Textile Society funding will be spent.
    In addition, please provide a paragraph (maximum 300 words) explaining how your institution could benefit the aims of the Textile Society and its members.
  3. Four good quality visuals in JPG format (max file size 8MB), fully referenced.

Please submit your completed application online through your membership login page.

  1. Applicants will be notified of the outcome within two months of the closing date.
  2. Applications that have not adhered to the above criteria may not be considered.
  3. The Textile Society Committee decision is final.
  4. A working liaison with successful applicants in receipt of an award is encouraged.
    As such, the Textile Society should be appropriately acknowledged and the Textile Society logo should be displayed on all written material.
    The Society should be provided with a report which may be published in Text (the Textile Society journal) and/or a study day held at the awarded institution, if appropriate.
  5. By submitting images to the Textile Society the applicant grants permission for all images to be used by the Textile Society for the purposes of publicity, including, but not limited to, use on the public website and social media channels, and all other publicity material such as the Textile Society journal Text, News, posters, etc.
    It is the responsibility of the applicant to ensure that all material is fully cleared for these purposes.
  6. The Textile Society journal Text is archived by the British Library.
    By submitting images to the Textile Society it is deemed that the applicant grants permission for all material to be archived.
  7. Museums, archives and conservation studios that have been successful in receiving an award should not re-apply for three years.
  8. Enquiries: museumaward@textilesociety.org.uk
  1. Salaries of employees or the running costs of the institution
  2. Projects that have already started
  3. Display cases
  4. Institutions outside of the UK