Maurice Davies is a museum adviser and commentator. With the Museum Consultancy, he advises museums large and small, in the UK and overseas, most recently in Norway, Finland and Qatar. More than anything else, he aims to make people responsible for museums think harder before acting. At King’s College – and elsewhere – he researches museums, with a particular focus on finding out more about museum audiences and their experiences.

He writes about museums, too, for publications such as Museums Journal and the Art Newspaper. He spent much of his career working for the Museums Association, a non-governmental membership organisation representing and supporting museums, latterly as head of policy and communication. He also held the post of deputy director. He worked on a range of museum-related policy issues including: entry to the workforce and workforce diversification, return of human remains and cultural property, illicit trade, museum impacts, improving use of collections, disposal/deaccessioning and other ethical issues, museums and young people and museums and sustainability.

He’s advised government ministers, House of Commons select committees, agencies such as the Arts Council and Heritage Lottery Fund, funders such as the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and sector-leading initiatives such as the Happy Museum Programme and the Our Museum initiative. He once edited Museums Journal, the main trade magazine for UK museums and has been a curator at Manchester Art Gallery and Tate.

He’s been a visiting lecturer at Imperial College. he has a first degree in pure maths and a doctorate in art history, for which he wrote a PhD on JMW Turner’s perspective lectures at the Royal Academy Sadly, he has few professional interests outside museums and probably has devoted too much of his career to them. He’s also a trustee of the Duchess of Marlborough Almshouses, founded in the 18th century in St Albans.