Since 2012, we’ve undertaken projects of all shapes and sizes. To deliver this program, we’ve collaborated with a huge variety of organisations – from the University, local area and further afield. Find out more about our past ventures here: 

Annual Reviews
Giving an overview of our work in each year, you can read our annual reviews online.
2021-2022 Year in Numbers
2020-2021 A year like no other
2018-2019 Highlights

Operation Survival and Cambridge Codebreakers: The Last Secret
We partnered with Fire Hazard Games to deliver two high-octane digital adventure games across a number of our museums. Imagine head-scratching puzzles and a madcap rush between venues (not in the galleries!). Find out more on our Collections in Action blog:
Operation Survival
Cambridge Codebreakers: turning museum visitors into players
Cambridge Codebreakers: developing a codebreaking adventure across four museums
2017-2019

India Unboxed
To mark the UK-India Year of Culture 2017, we celebrated a shared season on the theme of India - a programme of exhibitions, events, digital encounters, discussions, installations and more within the museums and the city of Cambridge.
Rooted in our collections, the programme explored themes of identity and connectivity for audiences in both the UK and India, with support from Arts Council England. Read the India Unboxed Evaluation Report
2017-18

The Museum as Method
This conference, run in collaboration with the University's Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CRASSH), brought together scholars from disciplines interested in material culture and curators from across the arts and sciences, to reflect on both questions of methodology and public policy.
2016 

Curating Cambridge
Curating Cambridge: our city, our stories, our stuff was a collaborative arts and cultural season which took place over October and November 2014. Read the Curating Cambridge Evaluation Report
2014

Artist in Residence, North West Cambridge Development
The Artist in Residence programme at the North West Cambridge Development ran throughout the development of the site, with three artists being appointed each year. 
2014-2016

Discoveries: Art, Science and Exploration
In 2014, Discoveries, the first major show to bring together the fascinating collections from all eight University of Cambridge Museums, took place at London's Two Temple Place and the Fitzwilliam Museum.
2014

House Guests
From March to July 2013 specimens, objects and artworks from the University of Cambridge Museums and collections took up residence at Kettle's Yard. The 'guests', from butterflies to Inuit carving, invited visitors to see Kettle's Yard in a new light and to discover more about the University of Cambridge Museums.
2013

Thresholds
In 2012 Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy invited ten of the best UK poets writing today to take part in a series of residencies at the University of Cambridge Museums. Each poet spent time in their host museum or collection, exploring the collection and working with young people, helping them to develop their critical thinking skills as well as their writing.
2012-13

What's On

Museum of Zoology
23 Mar 2024
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Pop into the Museum for lots of FREE fun family activities!

Museum of Zoology
12 Apr 2024
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Explore animal sounds and more at the Museum of Zoology with storytime and play for 2-5 year olds.

Museum of Zoology
06 Apr 2024
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Our volunteer guides share their personal selection of fascinating stories about gender and sex in the animal world at the Museum of Zoology.

Museum of Zoology
20 Apr 2024
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Our volunteer guides share their personal selection of fascinating stories about gender and sex in the animal world at the Museum of Zoology.

Museum of Zoology
13 Apr 2024
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Our volunteer guides share their personal selection of fascinating stories about gender and sex in the animal world at the Museum of Zoology.

Museum of Zoology
10 May 2024
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Explore the amazing world of birds at the Museum of Zoology with storytime and play for 2-5 year olds.

Cambridge University Botanic Garden 
04 Apr 2024
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Cambridge University Botanic Garden 
09 Apr 2024
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Cambridge University Botanic Garden 
17 Mar 2024
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An immense archive of plant diversity: the many uses of the Cambridge University Herbarium.

Cambridge University Botanic Garden 
21 Apr 2024
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The World Beneath a Wildflower Meadow

Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences
04 Apr 2024
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Discover a magical world of beautiful, tiny fossils which can only be seen with a microscope. Use them as inspiration to make a springtime decoration to display in the Museum or at home.

Cambridge University Botanic Garden 
19 May 2024
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Uncovering the microscopic world of mycorrhizal fungi

The Fitzwilliam Museum
26 Apr 2024
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With art historian, author and curator Dr Amy Tobin.

The Fitzwilliam Museum
27 Apr 2024
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Take part in a creative writing workshop led by award-winning poet and performance artist Bhanu Kapil.

 

The Fitzwilliam Museum
04 Apr 2024
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Join Dr Clare Carolin, curator and writer (King’s College London), in conversation with author and journalist Hadani Ditmar and artists Margarita Gluzberg and Babar Suleman.

The Fitzwilliam Museum
09 May 2024
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A discussion about artists and visionaries and the struggle between secular reasoning and spiritual awakening.

 

The Fitzwilliam Museum
30 Apr 2024
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Explore the museum after hours.

Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences
10 Apr 2024
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Discover a magical world of beautiful, tiny fossils which can only be seen with a microscope. Use them as inspiration to make a springtime decoration to display in the Museum or at home.

Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences
12 Apr 2024
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Discover a magical world of beautiful, tiny fossils which can only be seen with a microscope. Use them as inspiration to make a springtime decoration to display in the Museum or at home.

Cambridge University Botanic Garden 
16 Jun 2024
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Between Roman Agricultural Diffusion and Islamic Green Revolution: Crop diffusion in the 1st millennium CE Middle East and Mediterranean

Cambridge University Botanic Garden 
21 Jul 2024
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The extraordinary ecology of drylands

Cambridge University Botanic Garden 
18 Aug 2024
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Engineering to study biology: building tools to study an economically important crop disease

Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences
30 Mar 2024

Clare, our dinosaur who lives by the Museum steps, has been exploring our galleries. In every display case that she visited, she laid an egg. Can you find them all to win a prize?

Whipple Museum of the History of Science
09 Apr 2024
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Find out about the models scientists have used to explain the world, from a moving model of the solar system to the structure of molecules. 

Whipple Museum of the History of Science
10 Apr 2024
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Find out about the models scientists have used to explain the world, from a moving model of the solar system to the structure of molecules. 

Kettle's Yard
05 May 2024
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Kettle's Yard
05 May 2024
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Kettle's Yard
19 May 2024
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Kettle's Yard
19 May 2024
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Kettle's Yard
18 May 2024
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Museum of Classical Archaeology
11 Apr 2024
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An afternoon of family-friendly activities this Easter

The Fitzwilliam Museum
20 Apr 2024
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Join us at the Fitzwilliam Museum for a day of free activities for all the family! There’s no need to book, just drop-in on the day and get involved.

26 Mar 2024

Cambridge Pride and the University of Cambridge Museums (UCM) are commissioning an emerging creative practitioner to deliver an interactive activity or display on the theme of queerness and inspired by one of the UCM collections.

Museum of Classical Archaeology
27 Apr 2024
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Explore the spectrum of identities in the Ancient World.

The Fitzwilliam Museum
18 May 2024
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What could the world look like in 2050 if climate emergency was halted, global inequalities balanced, and differences between us were celebrated?

Museum of Classical Archaeology
11 May 2024
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Explore the spectrum of identities in the Ancient World.

Museum of Classical Archaeology
01 Jun 2024
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Explore the spectrum of identities in the Ancient World.

Museum of Classical Archaeology
14 Jun 2024
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Explore the spectrum of identities in the Ancient World.

Cambridge University Botanic Garden 
27 May 2024
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Join acclaimed authors Ajay Tegala and Zoë Howe as they lift the lid on local legends, celebrate spring and honour the land in an intriguing hour of botany and folklore you won’t want to miss!