The Museum Council of Iceland

The Museum Council of Iceland is an advisory board for the Icelandic Ministry of Culture and Business Affairs, and carries out various tasks regarding cultural, art, and natural history museums in accordance with Museum Act 2011 No 141. The Museum Council assesses applications from museums that seek accreditation according to the Museum Act, and prepares a proposal for the Ministry of Culture and Business Affairs that issues the accreditation. As of now, there are 47 accredited museums in Iceland, see the relevant list (with links) here.

The Museum Council has the following roles according to the Museum Act 2011 No 41:

a. To supervise museum activities in Iceland;
b. In cooperation with the central museums, to draft policies with regard to the work of museums and submit them to the Minister for approval;
c. To discuss and approve the founding documents or statutes of museums;
d. To discuss proposals for the accreditation of museums or the withdrawal of accreditation before they are submitted to the Minister;
e. To lay down conditions regarding museum premises, including accessibility standards and safety issues;
f. To lay down conditions regarding standards for museums’ cataloguing systems and the accreditation of such systems;
g. To provide the relevant central museum with an opinion on requests or suggestions for the disposal or destruction of museum objects;
h. To assess the need of a particular area of study or geographic region for a separate special responsibility museum and discuss proposals for such a museum before they are submitted to the Minister by the relevant central museum;
i. To draw up the Museum Fund’s award rules, to be approved by the Minister;
j. To evaluate applications for grants from the Museum Fund;
k. To undertake other tasks related to the operation of museums as further decided by the Minister

Principal museums

There are three principal museums (central museums) in Iceland that form strategies for other museums in their respective fields; The National Gallery, The Museum of Natural History, and the National Museum of Iceland. These principal museums are state-funded.

All accredited museums are obliged to work according to the Museum Act and the ICOM Code of Ethics. All accredited museums have the duty to acquire, preserve and promote, and communicate their collections, and safeguard the natural, cultural, and scientific heritage they preserve. The museums promote human well-being, social development, tolerance, and respect by advocating multicultural and multilingual expression in the promotion of collections of both tangible and intangible heritage. The museums create a favorable environment for connections between the community and the museums to create a harmonious relationship between both parts.

Accredited museums

Accredited museums report annually to the Museum Council, which continually monitors that these accredited museums operate according to the Museum Act. Every accredited museum submits its strategy and statue/constitution to the Museum Council for evaluation and confirmation.

Information on the general situation of accredited museums in Iceland is published in the Museum Council’s Annual Report on the Council´s website. Unfortunately, this information is only available in Icelandic.

According to the Museum Act, the Museum Council assesses applications for the Museum Fund and prepares proposals for the Ministry of Culture and Business Affairs, who allocates from the fund. Accredited museums can apply for operational grants with certain restrictions. Both museums and other entities (such as NGO’s, researchers, etc.) can apply for project grants in accordance with the Fund’s allocation rules.

Museum Act 2011 No 141