KEY AIM: This network will combine rich museum theory with innovative field-based practices in world-leading museum and heritage sites in order to address a recognised pan-European need for more informed, strategic and entrepreneurial professionals within the sector.

This Network will have regard to culture-led strategies reported at the City Showcase presentations at the 2016 PASCAL Glasgow Conference.

The Harnessing Museums, Heritage and Education LCN network objectives are::

1. Offer an integrated, international, and coherent platform that explores the social, historical, cultural and physical contexts of museums as sites and sources as well as critical methodologies through which to evaluate and critique the corpus of Museums, Heritage, and Education literature, research and policy.
2. Examine and discuss the political challenges that museums face when cultivating their resources for knowledge development/exchange and identity formation based on the meeting between regional/national, European, and global values.
3. Share, examine, and discuss the practical and ethical implications of new business models for museums through hands-on experiences of organisations learning to respond, adapt, gain influence, and remain relevant in a rapidly evolving world.
4. Share, examine and discuss the practical and political implications and challenges that surface when a museum exploits its potential for sustainable engagement, social cohesion, intercultural dialogue, social change, and the impact this has on public engagement and learning.
5. Contribute to the reflection on commonalities and differences in terms of location, audiences, organisational structure, funding, values, and priorities, across a broad range of museum types and in different countries.
6. Broaden and deepen the critical understanding of the implications when using different collections and spaces for exhibition work and the relation to access, lifelong learning, and participatory governance.
7. Broaden and deepen critical understanding of the implications of making collections accessible through digital means and the impact on accessibility to learning and engagement.