Professor Ross Parry

I am the founding Director of the university's inter-disciplinary Institute for Digital Culture - working with the culture sector globally to support its adaption to a digital world.

With Art UK and the Collections Trust, I co-lead the national Museum Data Service (MDS) - a transformative service that aims to connect and share the tens of millions of object records across all 1,700 accredited UK museums. This landmark initiative is a joint initiative by and the Institute for Digital Culture, supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Digital Accelerator Program, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s National Infrastructure for Digital Innovation and Curation for Arts and Humanities (iDAH).

I am also co-investigator on The Sensational Museum - a £1m interdisciplinary research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, that is designing and creating sensory interventions that are accessible to all – using what we know about disability to change how museums work for everyone.

I lead the international research consortium ('One by One' - building digitally confident museums) am a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy Board member for Attenborough Arts Centre (Leicester) and one of the founding Trustees of the Jodi Mattes Trust - for accessible digital culture.

Currently I serve as a member of the UK Research and Industry’s Steering Committee of its £19mn digital cultural heritage initiative ‘Towards a National Collection’. With Dr Vince Dziekan (Monash) I am co-editor of the Routledge book series ‘Critical Perspectives on Museums and Digital Technology’.

Previously I have been: Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Digital) (2016-2019); and Academic Director of the College of Social Sciences Arts and Humanities (2013-2016).

In 2018 I was listed in the Education Foundation’s ‘EdTech50’ - the fifty most influential people in the UK education and technology sectors. 

I theorise and historicise the ways that technology (both digital and pre-digital) has been used managed created and understood by museums.

As principal investigator:

AHRC National Infrastructure for Digital Innovation and Curation for Arts and Humanities (iDAH), ‘Consolidating the Museum Data Service as Research Infrastructure’, with Art UK and the Collections Trust. £330,000 (2023-2025).

NEH/AHRC ‘UK-US New Directions for Digital Scholarship in Cultural Institutions’ scheme ‘3 by 3: Modelling new digital leadership in museums’. £250,000 (AHRC) + £115000 (NEH) (2020-2021).

AHRC ‘UK-US Collaboration for Digital Scholarship in Cultural Institutions: Partnership Development Grant’ scheme ‘2 by 2: Structuring Museums to Deliver New Digital Experiences’. £100,000 (2020).

AHRC Standard Grants call 'One by One: building the digital literacies of UK museums'. £503,000 (2017-2020).

AHRC BT Research Networking Pilot Funding for ‘LIVE!Museum: visitor and institutional contexts for digital labelling and in-gallery connectivty’ with the Collections Trust and System Simulation Ltd., £12,096 (2009-2011).

AHRC Collaborative Research Training programme, ‘The Digital Heritage Research Training Initiative’, in collaboration with the University of Manchester, University of Glasgow, University of Newcastle and the Collections Trust., £53,000 (2008-2010).

AHRC Research Workshops (Museums and Galleries) Scheme for a nine-month project investigating ‘UK Museums and the Semantic Web’, with project partners MDA and the 24 Hour Museum, £15,000 (2006-2007).

HEROBC Innovation and Regional Fellowship award for a six-month ‘Innovations Fellowship’, to develop an in-gallery digital labelling system (‘LIVE!Labels’), £14,000 (2005-2006).

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award to fund a project entitled ‘Sustaining public-facing digital assets in museums’, with Simulacra Ltd and the Museum of London, £36,000 (2005-2010)

DTI’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership award - to work on a two-year project with a new media company (MacKenzie Ward Research Ltd.) to develop e-learning software for the cultural heritage and tertiary education sectors, 2001, £97,000 (2001-2003)

As Co-Investigator:

AHRC Standard Research Grant scheme, ‘The Sensational Museum: The Practice and Provision of Trans-Sensory Collecting and Communicating’, with Royal Holloway University of London, University of Westminster and University of Lincoln. [PI, Prof. Hannah Thompson], £998,000 (2023-2025)

AHRC ‘Circuits of practice: Narrating modern computing in museum environments’ with the University of Loughborough (PI Dr Simone Natale) £250000 (2020-2021).

AHRC Creative Economy Knowledge Exchange Projects Call - for ‘CATH (Collaborative Arts Triple Helix)' with the University of Birmingham [PI Dr Richard Clay] £247000 (2012-2014). EPSRC

AHRC Research Networks Call, to fund ‘Transforming Thresholds’, with the University of Birmingham, investigating museum foyers and entrance spaces and the media used within them [PI, Dr Ruth Page], £28,000 (2012-2014).

AHRC - Science and Heritage programme for ‘Representing Re-Formation: Reconstructing Renaissance Monuments’ (PI Prof. Philip Lindley) £497907 (2009-2013)

PPARC for a project entitled ‘Space Now: Today’s News from Space’, with the National Space Centre, Leicester (PI, Rev. Kevin Yates], £100,000 (2006-2007).

Google Scholar

Books

Ross Parry, Vince Dziekan and Karin de Wild (eds), Museums and Digital Confidence: Organisation, collection, interface (Routledge, 2025).

Simone Natale, Petrina Foti and Ross Parry, (eds), Museums and the History of Computing: Objects, narratives, practices (Routledge, 2024).

Kirsten Drotner, Vince Dziekan, Ross Parry and Kim Christian Schrøder (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication (Routledge, 2019).

Ross Parry, Ruth Page and Alex Moseley (eds), Museum Thresholds: The Design and Media of Arrival (Routledge, 2018).

Ross Parry (ed.) Museums in a Digital Age. Leicester Readers in Museum Studies (Abingdon and New York: Routledge: 2010).

Ross Parry, Re-coding the Museum: Digital Heritage and the Technologies of Change (Routledge, 2007)

Chapters in edited volumes

Ross Parry, Vince Dziekan and Karin De Wild, ‘Contextual, Holistic, and Purposeful: A Re-framing of Digital Skills for Museums’, in R. Parry, V. Dziekan & De Wild, K. (eds), Museums and Digital Confidence: Organisation, Collection, Interface (Routledge, 2025).

Parry, R. (2023). ‘Code switching: Feeling the ‘emotional turn’ in digital cultural heritage’, in Giglitto, L. Ciolfi, E. Lockley & E. Kaldeli (eds) Digital Approaches to Inclusion and Participation in Cultural Heritage - A European perspective (Routledge), Chapter 12.

Parry, R. (2023). ‘Digital’, in F. Mairesse (ed.) Dictionary of Museology (Routledge), pp. 131-35.

Parry, R. & Dziekan, V. (2022). ‘Critical Digital: Museums and their Postdigital Circumstance’, in H. Barranha & J. S. Henriques (eds.) Art Museums and Digital Cultures: Rethinking Change (Universidade NOVA de Lisboa & Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology), pp. 9-19.

Parry, R. (2019). ‘How Museums Made (and Re-Made) Their Digital User’, in T. Giannini & J.P. Bowen (eds.), Museums and Digital Culture, Springer Series on Cultural Computing (Springer), pp. 275-293.

K. Drotner, K., V. Dziekan, V., Parry, R. & Schrøder, K. (2019). 'Media, Mediatization and Museums: A New Ensemble', in Kirsten Drotner, Vince Dziekan, Ross Parry and Kim Schrøder, (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication (Routledge), pp. 1-12.

Ross Parry, Ruth Page & Alex Moseley, 'On a New Threshold', in Ross Parry, Ruth Page and Alex Moseley (eds) Museum Thresholds: The Design and Media of Arrival (Routledge, 2018), pp. 1-9.

Ross Parry, 'Digital Heritage: Agora and Agility' in Eugene Ch’ng, Vincent Gaffney and Henry Chapman (eds) Visual Heritage in the Digital Age, Spring Series on Cultural Computing (London: Springer-Verlag, 2013), pp. v-vii.

Ross Parry, ‘The Trusted Artifice: Reconnecting with the Museum’s Fictive Tradition Online’, in Kirsten Drotner and Kim Christian Schrøder (eds) Museum Communication and Social Media: The Connected Museum (New York and Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge, 2013), pp. 17-32.

Ross Parry, ‘Transfer Protocols:  Museum Codes and Ethics in the New Digital Environment’, in Janet Marstine (ed.) Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics: Redefining Ethics for the Twenty-First Century Museum (Routledge: 2011), pp. 316-331.

Ross Parry, 'The practice of digital heritage and the heritage of digital practice', in Ross Parry (ed.) Museums in a Digital Age. Leicester Readers in Museum Studies (Abingdon and New York: Routledge: 2010), pp. 1-7.

Ross Parry, ‘The future in our hands? Putting the potential of digital handhelds into practice’, in 'Digital Technologies and the Museum Experience: Handheld Guides and Other Media', ed. by Loic Tallon and Kevin Walker (Alta Mira, 2008) 179-193.

Ross Parry and Nadia Arbach, ‘Localised, Personalised and Constructivist: A Space for On-Line Museum Learning’, in Digital Cultural Heritage: a critical discourse, ed. by Kenderdine, S. and Cameron, F. (MIT Press, 2006), pp. 281-98.

Ross Parry and Andrew Sawyer, ‘‘Space and the machine: adaptive museums, pervasive technology and the new gallery environment’’, in Reshaping museum space: architecture, design, exhibitions, ed. by Suzanne MacLeod, (Routledge: 2005).

Ross Parry, ‘The language of digital heritage: a new critical discourse for museums and technology’, Museums and Technology (Tainan National College of the Arts, 2004), pp. 243-278.

Frank Colson, Jean Colson, Ross Parry and Andrew Sawyer, 'Cutting off the king's head: images and the (dis)location of power', in History and Images: Towards a New Iconology, ed. by Axel Bolvig and Philip Lindley (Brepol: 2003), pp. 187-207.

Ross Parry, 'Including Technology', in Including Museums: Perspectives on Museums, Galleries and Social Inclusion, ed. by Jocelyn Dodd and Richard Sandell (Leicester: RCMG, 2001), pp. 110-114.

Journal articlesRoss Parry, Sophie Frost & Lauren Vargas (2022). Technology, Change, and Emotion: What it means to build a human-centred approach to digital leadership and skills’, Museum, November-December, 50-55.

Carolyn Royston & Ross Parry (2019). 'Building a framework: The museum sector needs to rethink digital skills - from the ground up', Museum, vol. 98, issue 1, 34-39.Ross Parry (2013), 'The End of the Beginning: Normativity in the Postdigital Museum', Museum Worlds, vol. 1, 24-39.

Ross Parry & Paul Marty, 'Introduction to Digital Heritage', Museum Management and Curatorship, vol.  23, no. 4 (December 2008), 307-308.

Ross Parry, ‘Digital Heritage and the rise of theory in museum computing’, Museum Management and Curatorship, vol. 20, no. 4 (December 2005), 333-348.Ross Parry & John Hopwood, ‘Virtual Reality and the soft museum’, Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 16 (2004)

Ross Parry, 'Virtuality, Liminality and the Space of the Museum', in Clicks and Mortar: Building Cultural Spaces for the 21st Century, MDA Information, vol. 5, no. 5 (Cambridge: MDA, April 2002), pp. 67-70

Ross Parry, ‘Overcoming the Shock of the New: Changing the Agenda for Digital Learning’, Biology Curator, 20 (August 2001), pp. 20-4

Ross Parry, ' "See the Revolution of the Times": Initiatives Won and Lost in the Age of Digital Collections', in Beyond the Museum, MDA Annual Report (Cambridge: MDA, 2001), pp. 6-7.

Alicia Colson & Ross Parry, 'Shifting perspectives: method, media and the complex image', History and Computing, vol. 10, ed. by K. Schürer and M. Wollard (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 100-108.

Reports

Natale, Simone, Ross Parry, and Petrina Foti. “Circuits of Practice Research Report: Narrating Histories of Computing and Digital Media in Museum Environments”. Loughborough University (2022) https://hdl.handle.net/2134/19317764.v1.

Ross Parry & Peter Leonard, 'UK-US Collaboration for Digital Scholarship n Cultural Institutions', Workshop Report and Recommendations, 18-19th September 2019, Washington DC (UKRI AHRC: 2019)

Sejul Malde, Anra Kennedy & Ross Parry, 'Understanding the Digital Skills & Literacies of UK Museum People'. Phase Two Report, One by One (Leicester: University of Leicester, 2019).

Ross Parry, 'Socially Purposeful Digital Skills', in Connecting Digital Practice with Social Purpose: Let's Get Real 6. Report from the sixth Culture24 Action Research Project (Culture24, December 2018), pp. 34-35.

Ross Parry, ‘The Jodi Awards as a prism of accessible digital culture’, in E-Accessible Culture, G3ict (Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communications Technologies) Business Case White Paper Series (G3ict, June 2018).

Sally-Anne Barnes, Erika Kispeter, Doris Eikhof & Ross Parry, ‘Mapping the Museum Digital Skills Ecosystem’. Phase One Report, One by One (Leicester: University of Leicester, 2018).

Richard Clary, Johannah Latchem, Ross Parry and Lara Ratnaraja, 'CATH (Collaborative Arts Triple Helix) Report', University of Birmingham, 2015.

Ross Parry and Amy Jane Barnes, 'The Art Museum and its Future: Proposed research strands, projects and intellectual framework', Consultative Report submitted to Tate Research Centre, London, July 2010.

Ross Parry and Anna Crusciel, 'How effective is the use of interpretive media for cross-generational groups within the new Space Now gallery?', Final Report, submitted to National Space Centre, Leicester, May 2008.

Published proceedings

Parry, R., Foti, P. & Natale, S. (2021). ‘When Digital Becomes the Object: Developing Computing Histories in Museums’. Museums and the Web 2021. Published 1 February, 2021. 

Parry, Ross, Eikhof, Doris Ruth, Barnes, Sally-Anne and Kispeter, Erika. "Development, supply, deployment, demand: Balancing the museum digital skills ecosystem. First findings of the ‘One by One’ national digital literacy project." MW18: Museums and the Web 2018. Published January 31, 2018.

Parry, Ross, Alex Moseley, Nichola Gretton, Rachel Tunstall and Matthew Mobbs. 'Why MOOCs matter: The consequence of massive open online courses for museums, universities, and their publics.' MW2016: Museums and the Web 2016. Published February 1, 2016.

Ross Parry, Alex Moseley and Erik Kristiansen, 'On A New Threshold: Experiments In Gaming, Retail And Performance Design To Shape Museum Entrances'. In Museums and the Web 2014, N. Proctor & R. Cherry (eds). Silver Spring, MD: Museums and the Web. Published April 2, 2014.

Alex Moseley, Ruth Page and Ross Parry, 'The Creative Charette: Enabling Collaboration in the AHRC Research Network, Transforming Threshold', in online conference proceedings, The Knowledge Exchange, An Interactive Conference 26th and 27th September 2013, Lancaster University.

Ross Parry, Audience Development in Museums and Cultural Sites in Difficult Times, Proceedings of the Symposium held on 5 November 2009 at the National Gallery of Ireland, Series No. 8 (Dublin: National Gallery of Ireland, 2010), pp. 25-31.

Ross Parry, ‘New technologies as a means of dissemination: overcoming a history of incompatibility’ in 14 Jornadas Estatales DEAC Museos (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno – CAAM, 2008), pp. 58-81.

Ross Parry, Nick Poole and Jon Pratty, ‘Semantic dissonance: do we need (and do we understand) the Semantic Web?’, in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2008: Proceedings (Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, 2008).

Ross Parry, Mayra Ortiz-Williams and Andrew Sawyer (2007) ‘How shall we label our exhibit today? Applying the principles of on-line publishing to an on-site exhibition’ in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds) Museums and the Web 2007: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics.

Ross Parry and Nadia Arbach,‘The Localised Learner: Acknowledging Distance and Situatedness in On-Line Museum Learning’, Museums and the Web 2005: Selected Papers from an International Conference, ed. by Jennifer Trant and David Bearman (Toronto: Archives and Museum Informatics, 2005), pp. 67-75.

Ross Parry, 'The Careful Watchman: James I, Didacticism and the Perspectival Organisation of Space', in Disziplinierung im Alltag des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, ed. by Gerhard Jaritz (Vienna, Der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1999), pp.275-297.

First Supervisor on the following PhD projects:

• Models of empathetic digital skills development in the culture sector
• Digital accessibility in arts centre programming
• Materiality and authenticity in digital sound archives
• Fictive identity crafting in heritage organisations
• Platforms for community heritage in Egypt
• Online museum learning resources for schools

Previous PhD students supervised (as First Supervisor):

• Production of scripts for museum media (Dr Rachel Teskey)
• How museums interact with the expert web (Dr Blaire Moskowitz)
• The museum as platform for sound culture (Dr Stefania Zardini Lacedelli)
• Experiencing of in-gallery digital interactives (Dr Jingyu Peng)
• Data literacy within museums (Dr Lauren Vargas)
• Convergent media and production in museums (Dr Peter Annhernu)
• How the twentieth century curated the motor car (Dr Pal Negyesi)
• Collecting computer-based technology at the Smithsonian Institution (Dr Petrina Foti)
• Cultivating innovation with digital media in museums (Dr Haitham Eid)
• Museums pop music culture and the web (Dr Kathleen Pirrie Adams)
• Measuring the impact of museums’ social media (Dr Elena Villaespesa)
• Designing in-gallery digital media for children (Dr Amy Hetherington)
• Sustainability of digital resources in museums (Dr Jeremy Ottevanger)
• Displaying of devotional objects online (Dr Alex Whitfield)
• Podcasting in museums (Dr Lena Maculan)
• Mobile media for curating everyday life (Dr Kostas Arvanitis) 

My teaching attempts to historicise and theorise the development and implementation of digital technology in the museum and culture sector. I teach across the School's programmes (both campus-based [full-time] and distance/flexible learning [part-time]) particularly in the areas of:

• digital transformation and change
• workforce digital skills
• accessible/universal digital design
• data and information management
• in-gallery interactivity
• models replicas and copies

I have also served as PhD external examiner for:

• Kings College London (2023 2017 2018)
• University of Leeds (2021)
• University of Manchester (2021)
• De Montfort University (2021)
• University of Westminster (2020)
• University of Amsterdam (2020)
• Norwegian University of Science and Technology (2019)
• UCL (2017 2014)
• Goldsmiths University of London (2015)
• University Copenhagen (2015)
• IT University of Copenhagen (2014)
• University of Birmingham (2014)
• University of Loughborough (2008)
• University of Central England (2007)
• University of Melbourne (2005)
• University of South Australia (2003) 

I am always happy to speak about:

- the relationships between museums/galleries and technology;

- the use of digital media in museums and galleries (for exhibitions visitor experiences managing collections and organisational operation);

- how these interactions relate to ‘digital culture’ more widely nationally and internationally. 

Member of the 'AHRC/UKRI Towards a National Collection: Opening UK Heritage to the World' Steering Committee (2019 to present).

Advisory Board Attenborough Arts (2019 to present).

Chair of Trustees for the Jodi Mattes Trust - for accessible digital culture (2013 to present): (trustee since 2009).

Member of the International Scientific Advisory Board for the Danish research and development programme 'Our Museum' funded by Nordea-Fonden and Velux Fonden (2017 to 2021).

Member of the national JISC Horizons Group (2018 to 2019).

Member of the International Scientific Advisory Board for the research project ‘Learning 2.0’ managed by DREAM (the Danish Research Centre on Education and Advanced Media Materials) at the University of Southern Denmark (2011-2015).

Member of the national JISC Content Advisory Group (2012-2014).

Editorial Board of The Science Museum Group Journal (2019 to present).

Editorial Board of the Journal of Museum & Culture (Chinese Association of Museums (2018 to 2019).

Academic Advisory committee member Tate Papers (2014-2016).

Elected national Chair of the Museums Computer Group (2008-2011) 

Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2018)

Students' Union Academic Award (2017, 2014 and 2012)

‘Inspiring Leader’ University ‘Discovering Excellence’ Award (2016) 

Visiting Professor Roskilde University and University of Southern Denmark (2012)

Tate Research Fellow (2009-2012)

A University Teaching Fellowship (2007)

HEROBC / HIRF Innovations Fellow (2005) 

[invited keynote] Ross Parry 'Building a Digital Commons: Museums open collaboration and the goal of societal impact' presented online to Vores museums afslutningskonference Copenhagen (Denmark) 12 May 2021.

[invited keynote] Ross Parry & Vince Dziekan 'Critical Digital: Museums and their Postdigital Circumstance' presented online to Art Museums & Digital Cultures International Conference Lisbon (Portugal) 22 April 2021.

[invited keynote] Ross Parry 'Our Digital Maturity: Why Now is the Time for Empathy Equity and Community in Museum Technology' presented online to El I Congreso Internacional de Museos y Estrategias Digitales (CIMED21) Valencia (Spain) 25 March 2021.

[invited keynote] Ross Parry 'The Role of the Digital Turn in Museums’ Turn to Digital' presented online to 'The Art Museum in the Digital Age - 2021' The Belvedere Vienna (Austria) 11 January 2021.

[invited paper] Ross Parry '‘Building Digitally Confident Museums’ presented at the National Taiwan Science Education Center Taipei (Taiwan) 13 January 2020.

Originally my background was in Renaissance studies. Having worked for a firm of architects and the BBC World Service I was awarded a university doctoral award in 1994 with the University of Southampton's Department of History and Digital Libraries Research Centre - which became the CDLR part of the Intelligence Agents Multimedia Group (IAM).

I was Visiting Professor Roskilde University and University of Southern Denmark (2012). From 2017 to 2021 I was a member of the International Scientific Advisory Board for the Danish research and development programme 'Our Museum' funded by Nordea-Fonden and Velux Fonden. And from 2011-2015 I was a member of the International Scientific Advisory Board for the research project ‘Learning 2.0’ managed by DREAM (the Danish Research Centre on Education and Advanced Media Materials) at the University of Southern Denmark.

Previous press and media coverage has included:

‘Front Row’ - Radio 4 7:15pm 20 April 2011 [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010dqgd]

Lightfoot L. (2012 19 June) ‘Apps to bring museum studies to life’. The Guardian Education Guardian. p. 3. [https://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/jun/19/apps-technology-museum-studies] 

Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA) (awarded 2018)

PhD - University of Southampton Department of History (July 2001).

MA (with distinction) Early Modern European Culture (October 1995)

BA hons. History (July 1994)