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National Museums NI recognised by Princess Royal Training Awards
Now in its ninth year, The Princess Royal Training Awards continues to recognise organisations that demonstrate exceptional commitment to learning and development and showcase innovation within their training programmes on key issues such as sustainability and diversity, equity and inclusion. Now established as a prestigious and sought-after accolade, this year’s Princess Royal Training Awards attracted 127 applications from across the UK and Ireland with 52 winners. National Museums NI was awarded for its Foundations of Leadership and Management training programme. It is the second time the organisation has been recognised by the City & Guilds Foundation whose goal is to drive lasting and meaningful social change.
The Chief Executive of National Museums NI, Kathryn Thomson, was presented the award by HRH The Princess Royal, President of City and Guilds of London Institute, at a ceremony in Goldsmiths’ Hall in London in November. She said,
“Over the past seven years, National Museums NI has delivered a Foundations of Leadership and Management programme to support culture change and enhance leadership capabilities within the organisation. 108 people who work for the organisation have completed the programme, building confidence, improving communication and fostering a collaborative environment to manage change. The outcomes have been clear including increased confidence and resilience in managing and responding to change in the challenging environment our organisation operates in, and ensuring we leverage all of our resources, so we continue to maximise the benefits our museums bring to society.”
In recent years, National Museums NI has embarked on an ambitious programme of transformation, as Colin Catney, Chief Operating Officer at National Museums NI explains. He said,
“Our organisation plays an important role in society. In recent years, spurred by our passion for our museums and collections, we have embarked on an ambitious programme of transformation to ensure that we achieve the maximum public benefit through everything we do. We are actively rethinking the role of museums in our society to ensure that we remain relevant and bring real value. This commitment requires expert leadership and management so our people can bring this long-term vision to life through what we do.”
With skills training increasingly cited as a key to improving productivity challenges, creating learning programmes to develop new and existing workforce talent is now more important than ever.
Kirstie Donnelly MBE, Chief Executive of City & Guilds said,
“The Princess Royal Training Awards has become the ‘gold standard’ for training, learning and development, and continues to demonstrate how these can open up opportunities and attract new talent to industries with significant skills gaps and labour shortages. This year’s recipients have shown innovation and commitment to development within their own organisations, including those which have successfully tackled contemporary skills challenges which bring us closer to net zero, as well as others who have introduced unique and interesting programmes to ensure that traditional skills do not disappear. We are delighted to be able to recognise their accomplishments and, as we look ahead to our 10-year celebrations of the Awards are keen to continue seeing organisations prioritising investments in training to improve both their people, and organisational performance.”
Award recipients were selected by a newly expanded team of Assessors including Princess Royal Training Awards alumni and top-tier experts from the world of Learning & Development. For a full list of this year’s recipients and their training programmes please see the 2024 recipients page.