Suzanne MacLeod (she/her) is Professor of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, Co-Director of the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG) and PI for the Addressing the Attendance and Benefit Gap: a new Research and Implementation Paradigm for Museums, Galleries and Heritage project which she co-leads with Dr Mark O’Neill. In RCMG Suzanne undertakes collaborative research with a range of museums, galleries and heritage sites on projects that advance thinking and practice around museums’ social roles and responsibilities, drive inclusive organisational transformation and generate new insights and resources for the wider museums and heritage sector. Previous RCMG projects have included Isolation and loneliness – opening up new stories and interpretive experiences at Calke Abbey and Everywhere and Nowhere: exploring histories of disability, both with the National Trust, Challenging Embedded Whiteness at London Museum, Trans-Inclusive Culture: Guidance on advancing trans inclusion for museums, galleries, archives and heritage organisations, and Inclusive Transformation at the National Portrait Gallery where the team are working to understand how display and organisational decision-making can be undertaken in ways that counter negative polarising tendencies.

Originally trained as a graphic designer, Suzanne has authored and edited a number of books and articles on the spatial and social architecture of museums and the processes through which museums, galleries and heritage sites are shaped (see for example, Museum Architecture: A New Biography, The Future of Museum and Gallery Design, Museum Making: Narratives, Architectures, Exhibitions and Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions). Driven by a firm belief that the expertise needed to enable museums to reach their potential as a force for good in society is within our grasp but is challenged continually by the embedded history of museums, their colonial and paternalistic origins, the conventions and ‘rules’ of professional practice and the increasing economisation of all societal systems, her most recent book explored how museum and heritage making can be harnessed towards the nurturing of our sense of humanity, democracy and everyday life (Museums and Design for Creative Lives, 2021). The book returned to an inspiring, rule-breaking lineage of progressive museum design and explored this physical history as a route to understanding more about the strategies through which particular spatial and social relationships were encouraged and prioritised and the methods through which these cultural organisations sought to create landscapes full of potential.

Since 2021, Suzanne has been working with Dr Mark O’Neill to ask what would need to change about museums in order for them to fulfil this potential as sites of civic belonging and more fairly distribute their social and wellbeing benefits across a representative cross-section of society. This work led to the Addressing the Attendance and Benefit Gap AHRC Research Network which ran from 2023-2025 and resulted in our hypothesis – developed collaboratively with a range of museums, funding and policy bodies and academic colleagues – that the key to shifting deeply entrenched visitor demographics is a new museum research and implementation paradigm. Suzanne and mark are now working with a team of colleagues and partners to take this research forward in this major 4-year AHRC-funded Addressing the Attendance and Benefit Gap research project.

Mark O’Neill worked for over 30 years in museums, mostly in Glasgow, where he moved in 1984, serving as Head of Glasgow Museums from 1998-2009.  He led a number of large scale, award-winning projects, including: in 1993 the only museum of world religions in the UK (“In terms of interpreting and inspiring society afresh, the St Mungo Museum is probably the most important museum to have been opened in Britain since the V & A”, The Spectator); in 2006, the £35 million refurbishment of Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum  (one of the “few memorable paradigm-shifting museums that come along in any lifetime” Elaine Gurian); and the £74 million Riverside Museum (European Museum of the Year 2013).

From 2009 to 2016 he was Director of Policy & Research for Glasgow Life, the charity which delivers arts, museums, libraries, and sports services for the City of Glasgow, the largest organisation of its kind in Europe. This gave him a new perspective on the possible roles and impacts of museums in delivering access and social inclusion and how they might be evidenced. He has lectured worldwide and published on museum philosophy and practice, as well as on strategic planning for heritage, tourism and urban regeneration, and on the health benefits of cultural attendance. He served as Chair of the European Museum of the Year Award for seven years. He is co-lead on Addressing the Attendance and Benefit Gap. 

Sara Wajid is Co-CEO alongside Zak Mensah – this job-share CEO partnership is a first in the museum sector and signals Birmingham Museums Trust’s commitment to inclusive working practices. Before working in museums Sara was a cultural commentator, journalist and editor.

Sara is a founder member of the Museum Detox network for people of colour in museums and an active advocate for diversity and equality issues in the arts. Sara is also a judge for the Museum and Heritage awards, and a executive committee member of the National Museum Directors’ Council.

Sara has recently been awarded an Honorary Doctorate from University of York.

David Bartram is a sociologist at the University of Leicester. He is Editor-in-chief of Social Indicators Research and Vice-President of the International Society for Quality of Life Studies (ISQOLS). He has published two books: Key Concepts in Migration (SAGE, with Maritsa Poros and Pierre Monforte) and International Labor Migration: Foreign Workers and Public Policy (Palgrave). He has held grants from the British Academy, the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Academy, Leverhulme and the Nuffield Foundation. He holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a BA from Kenyon College.

Theano Moussouri is Professor of Museum Studies at UCL. An interdisciplinary social scientist, she investigates visitor experience and museum and heritage practices, exploring how cultural institutions shape identity, belonging, and meaning, particularly for non-dominant communities. She has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and is the author of Museum Learning: Theory and Research as Tools for Enhancing Practice (2018, with Jill Hohenstein) and Museums, Identity and Family Practices (2025). Her research informs museum practice and cultural policy, advancing inclusive approaches to heritage and community engagement.

Laura Kudrna is an Associate Professor in Health Research Methods at the University of Birmingham. She is a behavioural and implementation scientist with expertise in evaluating workplace health and wellbeing programmes.

Richard Sandell is Professor of Museum Studies and Co-Director of the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG) at the University of Leicester. With colleagues in the Centre, he works collaboratively with cultural institutions on projects that generate new insights and advance thinking and practice around their social roles, responsibilities and agency. His publications include Museums, Moralities and Human Rights (Routledge, 2017) which explores how museums, galleries and heritage sites of all kinds – through the narratives they construct and publicly present – contribute to shaping the moral and political climate within which human rights are experienced, continually sought and fought for, realised and refused.

In 2019, he published a major new international edited collection – Museum Activism, with Robert Janes, that explores the ‘activist turn’ in museum thinking and practice and makes the case for the socially purposeful museum. He is a co-author of Trans-Inclusive Culture: guidance on advancing trans inclusion for museums, galleries, archives and heritage organisations (2023) and Trustee of the Museum of Homelessness.

Dr Sarah Plumb is Senior Research Associate at the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries, University of Leicester. She has worked in, and with, museums and galleries over the last twenty years, and brings with her significant research- and practice-based experience, with a particular focus on ethical forms of community engagement.

Dr Viji Kuppan is Research and Innovation Associate at the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries, University of Leicester. He joined RCMG in April 2026 to work on the AHRC-funded ‘Addressing the Museum Attendance and Benefit Gap’ project. Viji brings extensive experience of research-led and community-focused work with minoritised groups across sport, leisure, heritage and the cultural sectors. His work focuses on intersectional inequalities, participation and belonging, and on how cultural institutions can support more inclusive forms of engagement. 

Cesare Cuzzola (he/him) is Research Associate at the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG), where he works across a range of projects. His disciplinary background is in anthropology and material culture, and his doctoral thesis explored the role of material culture in the context of museum projects that seek to address contemporary social inequalities.

He is a core member of the Trans-Inclusive Culture project, which develops guidance on advancing trans inclusion for museums, galleries, archives, and heritage organisations. Cesare also sits on the ICOM Italy Gender and LGBTQ+ Rights Working Group, with whom he collaborated to produce an adaptation of this guidance for the Italian heritage sector. Since 2024, he has coordinated the Queer Heritage and Collections Network, a UK-wide subject specialist network offering training, networking, and peer support to professionals working with LGBTQ+ collections and histories.

Jason Hughes is Professor of Sociology and Impact Lead for the College of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities at the University of Leicester, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and Member of Academia Europaea. His research spans the sociology of culture, inequality, and substance use, with a sustained interest in how social interdependencies shape patterns of inclusion and exclusion. He brings expertise in qualitative methodology and long-term sociological analysis to questions of unequal participation in public institutions, and is committed to translating research insight into meaningful real-world change.