Applications open 7 March 2024. Applications are due by 3pm on Tuesday 9 April.
The museum’s grants and awards program (known as the Maritime Museums of Australia Project Support Scheme or MMAPSS) offers funding to regional museums and organisations to help preserve or display objects of national and historical maritime significance.
It also supports staff or volunteers, from remote or regional organisations, to spend time learning specific skills and making valuable connections.
Many cultural institutions around the country care for maritime items of historical and national significance. The museum supports and encourages efforts to conserve and display unique local objects for today’s audiences and future generations.
If your museum or organisation has an object of significance you want to preserve or display then you may be eligible to apply for a grant of up to $15,000. Funding is provided by the Australian Federal Government and the Australian National Maritime Museum.
The scheme gives grants of up to $15,000 for projects that fall into one of these categories:
- Collection management (registration, documentation and storage)
- Conservation (preservation, vessel restoration, conservation work/treatments and professional assessments)
- Presentation (research, development of exhibitions, establishing interpretative displays and workshops)
- Development of relevant education or public programs which make collections more accessible to audiences
- Museological training for paid or unpaid workers of not-for-profit organisations caring for Australia's maritime collections.
- Maritime Museum Administrators’ Course - Funding of up to $3,000 is available to support the accommodation and travel costs of staff and/or volunteers to participate in a week-long training course to develop museological skills and knowledge to increase standards of practice for the care and management of maritime collections. Read more about the experience that others have had during this course in this Signals article and view a sample Course Brochure program here.
Since 1995, the scheme has given over $2.4 million in support of over 535 projects and over 75 museological training opportunities to organisations in Queensland, New South Wales (including Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands), Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
See Current and Past Funding Recipients
More Information
If you have any questions about MMAPSS please contact the coordinator:
- Phone: +61 2 9298 3777
- Email: mmapss@sea.museum
The Maritime Museums of Australia Project Support Scheme is funded by the Australian Government through the Australian National Maritime Museum and the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts.
Featured image: Maritime Archaeology Association of Western Australia (MAAWA) Shannon Reid recording underwater MMAPSS 2016-17
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