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Involvement in the workshops had a significant impact on participants. It gave them a new language to discuss ethics in the wider sector and brought them into contact with other colleagues who advocate progressive ethical models for museums. Participants were asked to indicate what issues from the five workshops they found to be most insightful (Figure 4.6) and most challenging (Figure 4.7). Insightful issues included: co-production; the interdependence of museums and the wider world; and the need for a personal ethics in the sector. Challenging issues ranged from: mapping the relationships between personal and institutional ethics; distinguishing between theoretical and applied ethics; and acknowledging the diversity of approaches to ethics within the museum sector. Contributors reflected that there was often a connection between the most insightful and the most challenging issues: for example, co-production was an insightful issue for some participants, but also raised challenges in in terms of definition and the reinterpretation of expertise. One participant questioned whether ethics was the most appropriate framework through which to address the most pressing issues facing museums, such as the structures of power and inequality.

FIGURE 4.6 Reflections on the most insightful elements of the five workshops.

FIGURE 4.7 Reflections on the most challenging issues from the five workshops.

When asked what major questions had been left unanswered by the research network, participants wanted more time to unpack further the ideas of the new museum ethics. Issues to explore in greater depth included: whether ethics is a set of principles and values, a discipline, or a method; and the multiple ways in which ethics is framed – by “universal” values or principles such as human rights or culturally relative practices – and might be negotiated within conflicting systems of values. The network would have benefited from the involvement of more international and non-Western contributors, and from more time to consider how ethics intersects with power and politics. Members also said that they would have welcomed more discussion of case studies outside of the museum sector, such as the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics. A few participants wanted more exposure to speakers who could articulate a conservative perspective on museums so as to challenge the formation of a consensus within the workshop and to help prepare for conversations within the sector.

Finally, contributors wanted to look at a range of new initiatives to advance twenty-first-century museum ethics. Some contributors championed the possibility of developing an independent body that would stand as an intermediary between institutions and museum professionals, to ensure that museum staff who disagreed with the ethical position of their institution would have a voice; the body would provide support for dissensus, as well as a space to reflect and think critically about ethics in museums. Other participants advocated the establishment of a research and development fund for museums to experiment with socially engaged projects. A few hoped to see an integrity auditing or monitoring tool that could be piloted in the museum sector. Participants were eager to put their ideas into action. Clearly, the research network created momentum among the group to keep conversations flowing.