Museum Siam to hold Museum Thailand Awards 2020
with hopes to raise the quality of Thai museums 
Bangkok: 18 September - The National Discovery Museum Institute (Museum Siam) has been committed to enhancing the quality of museums in Thailand for four consecutive years, now holding Museum Thailand Awards 2020 to award outstanding museums or learning centers in Thailand. At the event, there will be two major award categories: Museum Thailand Awards 2020 and Museum Thailand Popular Vote 2020. These awards will serve to motivate and urge museums and learning centers in the nation to raise their service quality to meet international standards. This year’s event is a blast with more than 100 participating museums and learning centers from across the nation. Besides, there is a special award being introduced for the first time this year - Muse Idol Awards - which will be given to recognize an influential model whose contributions have been proven beneficial to support learning and travelling in museums and learning centers
Mr. Rames Promyen, Director General of the National Discovery Museum Institute , said “The National Discovery Museum Institute is responsible for encouraging a learning process through the museum as well as raising awareness among Thais about the museum culture and promoting development with the museum network to reach international standards. This year, Museum Siam is holding Museum Thailand Awards 2020 under the concept of the relations between museums and communities. To be specific, museums must be connected with their nearby communities in some way - including those people who get involved with the museums themselves. “From The Root to The Ground” is the theme for this year’s event, encapsulating the importance of self-awareness among the museums. They need to have a clear understanding of what is their core identity and what they desire to tell the people. When a museum is well aware of its root, it will be able to spread the knowledge of the people and communities, and across the nation.
Also, the museum will be able to connect with any learning system. These awards will be given to recognize museums and learning centers that have made outstanding progress, and will serve to encourage them to improve themselves both in terms of vision and work process. This will help museums in Thailand grow as a learning tourist destination with high quality and standard in spreading knowledge to the people and the society in the future, and will help to promote the connection between the museums themselves, making it easier for them to collaborate for further improvements.”
At Museum Thailand Awards 2020, awards will be given to four types of museum: 1) museum with a focus on the society, art, and culture; 2) museum with a focus on creative economy; 3) museum with a focus on science and environment; and 4) museum with a focus on the local community. The criteria will be based on the standard set by the International Council of Museums (ICOM), which has been used as the guideline over the past years. The committee panel consists of experts from various walks of life, responsible for evaluating the participating museums across four major aspects: 1) activity and learning process; 2) communication and experience; 3) relation building with communities; and 4) conservation and inheritance. This event has been well received by the networks of local museums that are making the event more vivid during the week of Thai Museum Day which is celebrated on September 19.
As for Museum Thailand Popular Vote, the awards will go to the Top Ten Most Voted Museums based on how well their activities engage users on the Museum Thailand website. Moreover, this year marks a special occasion as Muse Idol Awards 2020 will be given for the first time. Candidates have been selected from the people with excellent showing in the learning aspect for three categories: 1) Supporting in Learning of Culture and Arts 2) Supporting in learning about nature and environmental and 3) Supporting in learning and travelling in museums and learning centers, and the awards go to Alex Rendell, Note Panayanggool, and Jennie Panhan, respectively. The objective of these awards is to inspire the people, especially young people, raising their awareness and acceptance toward outdoor learning, thus enabling them to improve themselves even further for the benefit of the society and the nation as a whole.
The Museum Thailand Awards Event will serve to show recognition to the successful museums and learning centers, solidifying their commitment and improving management capabilities in a sustainable manner, which will help to strengthen the foundation for further economic development - making it grow firmly from the root to the ground - in the future.
For further information about Museum Thailand Awards 2020 or updates from Museum Siam, please visit the website at www.museumthailand.com or
Facebook Page: Museum Siam
