Theme: "Curators and Communities:  Training for Collaboration"

ICOM - ICTOP (International Council of Museums - International Committee for the Training of Personnel) is holding its annual conference from October 11-13 (extended programme October 10-15), 2017 in Windhoek, Namibia in cooperation with the Museum Association of Namibia as well as the ICOM Namibia, the University of Namibia, the National Museum of Namibia and the Finnish Museum Association as partners.

ICOM's International Committee for the Training of Personnel (http://ictop.org/) was formally established in 1968. ICOM-ICTOP's primary interest is a capacity building and its main aim is to promote trainings and professional development and to establish standards/guidelines for museum/heritage professionals throughout their careers. The Committee studies and provides information on museum/heritage education offerings, organises an annual meeting and specialised workshops, acts as an advisor for the establishment of syllabi and curriculum for museums/heritage studies and other trainings programmes and works closely with other ICOM Committees (and other international organisations from the field) to achieve aforementioned goals. As ICOM's oldest specialist committee tasked with issues of international professional development we are very pleased to bring our conference this year to Namibia/Africa after Italy/Europe the last year and Barbados, Vietnam, Brazil, Netherlands and Canada where ICTOP conferences took place in 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012 & 2011 respectfully.  The global reach of ICTOP's conferences are evidence of the importance that we place on sharing experiences and knowledge internationally.

Through the theme entitled "Curators and Communities:  Training for Collaboration" ICTOP 2017 aims to engage all museum/heritage professionals who are dealing with this theme, whether at a local, national, regional or international level. Modern museology stresses the centrality of community participation in exhibition development, collections management and museum governance. However, what training and tools have been developed to equip museum workers to effectively employ this approach?

ICTOP, and all colleagues who will be attending the ICTOP 2017 annual conference, are invited to share their opinions on how you/your museum/training programme/research activities/project collaboration is addressing issues of collaboration with communities no matter how small, or indeed big they are.

The perspectives we are interested in will include all contemporary concerns and challenges, case studies of good (or bad) practice, as well as historical overviews or reflections on future possibilities. The Conference theme is wide and may cover diverse forms of work with/for communities. That's exactly our main intention = to become aware and discuss as many as possible varied ideas, challenges or practices in this field since, after all, we all are here because of the communities we work with and not the other way around. In addition, in today's globalised and interconnected World we are becoming more and more aware that our local challenges or successes, involving local communities may be relevant to museums whether they are situated in Africa, Europe, Americas, Asia or Australia. Perhaps we also need to interrogate the identity of `the community' as not only a local constituency (from which our visitors are mainly drawn) or a more global, disparate `community' that has links with the material culture in our collections.

Within ICOM-ICTOP we believe there are no more or less important topics, no difference between a large or a small scale project since the smallest training at a village museum could teach us lessons that will be of as much importance as one on an international scale. In this sense all proposals directly, or even indirectly dealing with the main conference theme (in a myriad of ways) are encouraged.

Conference information:

Further details of the ICOM-ICTOP conference (registration forms, accommodation, study tours and other details) will be available from April on at the ICTOP web site:

http://ictop.org/conferences/2017-2/