This report is the outcome of a research project undertaken by the British Council in partnership with University College London (UCL) in June-September 2020 that aimed to identify opportunities and needs in the museums and galleries sector, from the perspective of the practitioners in the Gulf States. The data collected will help the British Council to develop a range of capacity-building opportunities in the future to support the sector in this part of the world.
The research was undertaken in two phases. In the first phase, we have collected quantitative data through an online survey that was shared with museum/gallery professionals in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia. The next phase, consisted of a series of roundtable discussions with key stakeholders in each country around topics that emerged from the surveys, and had as a primary aim to validate the information from the survey and collect qualitative data which would complement the quantitative ones.
It is important to note that the research was subject to limitations that have to do with the specific circumstances of the period it was conducted in (i.e. during the pandemic and therefore in different stages of lockdown in different countries), as well as the overall political situation in the region (the diplomatic relationships of the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia on the one hand, and Qatar, on the other, are interrupted). Therefore, this study is not a fully comprehensive mapping of the cultural sector in each of the countries; it aims to provide an informative insight into the cultural sector in the region, which needs to be further enhanced and detailed for each of the countries in future research.
