Designation Panel
The Designation Panel members, who work across the fields of arts, cultural heritage and historical research, meet twice a year to consider applications for Designated status.
Introduction
You can find a list of the current Designation Panel members below:
Designation Panel
Dr Nick Merriman
He is Honorary Professor of Museum Studies at UCL and the University of Manchester, and until recently was Chair of the National Trust’s Collections and Interpretation Advisory Group. He chaired the 2023 review of funding for Higher Education Museums, Galleries and Collections for UKRI. Among many other appointments has been President of the Council for British Archaeology and Chair of ICOM UK. Recent books are ‘Museums and the Climate Crisis’ (Routledge, 2024) and ‘Returning The Benin Bronzes. A case study of the Horniman’s restitution’ (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming).
Belinda Day
Janet Dugdale
Janet joined National Museums Liverpool in 1997 as Curator of Social and Community History and, from 2000, headed the successful Museum of Liverpool Life. She led the content and interpretation teams creating the Museum of Liverpool, which opened under her directorship in 2011. She is a strong advocate for, and practitioner of, participative and partnership working in museums.
Janet holds a History degree from the University of Manchester and a postgraduate Diploma in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester. She took the UEA Museum Leadership Programme and was in the first cohort of the Museum Association’s Transformers programme. She is a Fellow of the Museums Association, the Royal Society of Arts and the Institute of Leadership & Management.
Katie Eagleton
Throughout her career, Katie’s work has combined library, archival and museum collections.
In 2018, Katie was a Fellow on the Getty Leadership Institute programme for cultural leadership in the US, and she has also participated in the Clore Leadership Programme in
the UK. She is a member of the steering group for the AHRC Towards a National Collection programme which aims to open up digital access to cultural heritage collections of all kinds.
Gabrielle Heffernan
Gabrielle is also a mentor for the Associateship of the Museums Association, having gained the AMA in 2017, and is part of the 2021 Clore Emerging Leaders Cohort.
Sarah Lawrence
Sarah now works freelance as an independent curator and writer, with a special focus on creative collections-based programming with and for older people including people living with dementia.
Dr Hugh Maguire, FRSA
Hugh acted as Director of the Hunt Museum Limerick between 2009 and 2016 and brought the Museum through its first accreditation process. In this same role he was conscious of the ongoing challenges posed in preserving buildings and collections of significance. A former member of the International Jury for the Europa Nostra Conservation Awards he has also been proactive member of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), Chairing the Irish National Committee as well as ICOM’s recently established International Working Group on National Committees. Hugh is Advisor to the Pope Grotto Preservation Trust, Twickenham.
Hugh joined the Committee as an ICOM representative in 2020.
Dr Bharti Parmar
Catriona Wilson
She is Head of the Petrie Museum at UCL, responsible for its Designated, internationally renowned collection of over 80,000 ancient Egyptian and Sudanese archaeological objects.