Museums for Inclusive and Democratic Societies
How can museums become more accessible institutions in the service of democracy?
During the years 2025-2027, the Norwegian National Museum of Justice in Trondheim and Gammel Estrup the Danish Manor and Estate Museum will collaborate on the project Museums for Inclusive and Democratic Societies (MINDS), through funding by the European Union’s educational pool ERASMUS+.
With this collaboration the museums work to break down the barriers that prevent people with cognitive disabilities and developmental disorders from participating equally in museum experiences. This comes from the understanding that participation in culture is not only a human right, it is also an important part of democratic education, awareness and engagement . When someone is excluded from cultural life, they are also excluded from important aspects of democratic participation.
In this blog, we share insights, experiences, and stories from the project. Here you can follow in our work, meet participants from the project and gain insight into how museums can become important democratic meeting places for all.
The Norwegian National Museum of Justice and Gammel Estrup – The Danish Manor & Estate Museum have been awarded EU-funding for a new Small Scale Partnership Erasmus+ project that will promote greater democratic participation through improved accessibility in museums across Europe.
The project explores how museum visits can serve as tools for fostering democratic education among people with cognitive developmental disabilities and developmental disorders, who face barriers in accessing museum content. Our goal is to create new opportunities for participation in European museums and examine how these can strengthen democratic engagement within this underrepresented group.
At the heart of the initiative is co-creation: actively involving members of the target group—who statistically have very low voter turnout—in developing activities and educational strategies at both museums. This ensures that solutions are developed not only for the group, but also with them.
Directly involving the target audience is crucial, because accessibility is not only about physical conditions such as elevators and ramps, but also significantly about representation in the museum’s narratives.
“Lack of accessibility – both practical and in terms of representation – deprives citizens of equal opportunities to participate in the democratic infrastructure that museums constitute,” states Amine Skousgaard Johnsen from the Justice Museum – Norway’s National Museum for Police, Judiciary and Correctional Services.
The two museums will use the project to contribute to how cultural institutions can broaden social and political agendas in an international, primarily european context. The focus will be on developing simple, practical methods that can be widely implemented across Europe, inspiring more inclusive museum practices across borders.
“This grant gives us a unique opportunity to strengthen our important local work with people with special preconditions while also contributing to a larger European conversation about the role of museums in relation to accessibility and democracy,” says Anders Sinding from Gammel Estrup – The Danish Manor & Estate Museum.
The project, an equal partnership between the two museums, will run until 2027. By its conclusion, it will deliver concrete solutions and practical guidelines for other European museums working within this vital but often overlooked field.
For further information about MINDS, please contact project managers:
Anders Sinding ans@gammelestrup.dk
Amine Skousgaard Johnsen amine@justismuseet.no
We invite museum professionals across Europe to participate in a short survey on cognitive accessibility. The survey is part of the Erasmus+ project MINDS (Museums for Inclusive and Democratic Societies) and takes approximately 5 minutes to complete.
About the Survey
The survey focuses on how museums work to make exhibitions and interpretation accessible to visitors with cognitive disabilities – people who often need clear, concrete and sensory-based communication to fully benefit from a museum visit. The WHO estimates that between 1 and 3% of the world’s population has cognitive disabilities, corresponding to a minimum of 60,000 people in Norway alone.
The aim is to understand what barriers – financial, knowledge-based or methodological – make it difficult to reach this audience for museum. The insights gathered will be used to develop practical tools and methods with transferable value for museums across Europe.
All museum professionals are welcome to participate, regardless of their role or type of museum.