Royal Museums Greenwich

Who we are

Royal Museums Greenwich comprises the Royal Observatory, Cutty Sark, National Maritime Museum and Queen’s House. We are also home to The Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre and the Caird Library and Archive.

Together we’re dedicated to enriching people’s understanding of the sea, the exploration of space, and Britain's role in world history.

Who we are: Royal Museums Greenwich

• We are a collection of diverse sites with unique identities, overlapping interests and a common purpose.
• We are explorers of time, space, place and belonging. Our collections and subjects are about investigating worlds, crossing boundaries, bridging cultures, and creating connections. We are a place to explore the very essence of what makes us human.
• Our collections reach across continents, cultural divides, tumultuous seas and cosmic voids. Through our institution, we have a uniquely interdisciplinary potential – art, history and science – which we can tackle separately and in dialogue with each other.
• Our subjects are local, global and universal – they help us to pose big questions about the universe we live in, the planet we live on and its people.

Our culture and values

Why we’re here: our social purpose

• Royal Museums Greenwich has a social purpose at its heart – to serve our communities and stakeholders in line with our function as museums and heritage sites.
• We want to be a progressive national museum – brave and bold, relevant, inclusive, collaborative, proactive, ethical, informed and expert. We will listen and learn, evaluate and consult, working together to be a place by and for our audiences.
• We will strive to tell histories more fully, recognising different perspectives and working with stakeholders to be honest about the past, giving an equality of voice and recognising intersecting identities.
• We will support skills development, critical thinking, knowledge and understanding.
• Our primary aim will be to be relevant and meaningful, both reaching out and inviting people in, welcoming all and supporting their wellbeing.
• We will have clear timelines and a strategic plan. This will involve mapping the journey in the following ways: in vision (1–5 years; clear sense of outputs); on the horizon (5–10 years; a range of possibilities); in the imagination (10–15 years; blue- sky thinking and experimentation). This will enable us to enhance our reach and reputation, and attract funding.

Equality, diversity and inclusion policy

Our identities make us human. They shape who we are, forging and sustaining communities at personal, local, national and global levels, bringing us together and setting each of us apart. Communities of identity embrace and cut across gender, race, class, ability, sexuality, life experience and religious belief. They foster bonds of friendship, wellbeing, imagination and an essential sense of belonging. Even when looking out into space, we strive for connection and meaning, asking ourselves are we alone? Our diversity also brings inequality and difference into sharp relief. Barriers of prejudice and discrimination perpetuate both privilege and disadvantage, creating fear, resentment and entitlement. Our collections have often been shaped by those with the most power, making them partial and representative only of particular perspectives, diminishing the agency and contributions of many others. However, by exploring, appreciating and celebrating individual and collective diversity, we can nurture greater equality, understanding and accessibility, helping everyone to find their place in our museum, in our world and in the wider universe.