Luigi Micheletti Award

The Luigi Micheletti Award is the European prize for innovative museums in the world of contemporary history, industry and science. It is one of the leading activities of the Luigi Micheletti Foundation.

Up to and including the 2010 competition, candidates were drawn from the list of applicants for the European Museum of the Year Award, which is administered by the European Museum Forum. The EMYA candidates are either new museums, established for the firsttime during the past two or three years, or older museums which have been substantially remodelled or have moved to new premises during the same period. This necessarily limited the candidates which qualified for the Luigi Micheletti Award, and from 2011 onwards the system of recruitment has changed radically.

The Award is now administered by the European Museum Academy and applications are invited from museums of any age. The new format of the Luigi Micheletti Award has three main features:

1. Its extension to examples of innovative and creative presentations and interpretations of collections, both of totally new museums or of existing institutions;

2. The inclusion of eligible candidates from the sector of science centres, visitors’ centres and similar institutions;

3. The active involvement in the nomination and selection process of candidates of formerwinners and of other museums which have made a contribution to the development ofmuseological discourse in this specific area of interest.

The criteria are concentrated on those aspects of a museum which – more than the quality of the exhibitions, of the building, etc. - contribute most directly to attracting and satisfying visitors beyond their expectations. Kenneth Hudson, the founder of the European Museum of the Year Award and the European Museum Forum, called it ‘Public Quality’.

From the DASA of Dortmund, the first winner in 1996, to the Military History Museum of Dresden, the winner of 2013 Edition, the story of the Luigi Micheletti Award confirms that the concept of "museum's quality" is a reality from a changing, bur recognizable, face.