We are pleased to welcome Alison Hems as the new General Secretary of ICOMOS-UK. Her leadership will enable the organisation to continue its work in promoting appreciation and understanding of our cultural heritage in the UK and worldwide.

Alison comes to us after a wide and varied career working for a number of years in the museums and heritage sector. Spanning local authority, national and independent organisations, and the universities sector, Alison brings vast experience to the role. She was Head of the School of Writing, Publishing and the Humanities at Bath Spa University where she developed and was the Course Director of the MA in Heritage Management.

Before her role at Bath Spa, Alison was responsible for the Renaissance in the Regions programme at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, and has worked as Head of Interpretation at English Heritage leading the development of new approaches to access and learning at over four hundred historic properties. Her international experience includes work at the National Botanic Gardens of America on the management and development of a major cultural site on the island of Maui in Hawaii. She has worked on Technical Evaluation Panels advising on nominations for World Heritage Site status. She has recently stepped down as the Chair of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society.

The unifying thread running throughout Alison’s career has been the importance of understanding, and trying to meet, the needs of those with whom she has worked: visitors to museums and historic sites, their management teams and stakeholders, local communities, her students and academic colleagues, the city in which the University is located. She will bring this approach with her to ICOMOS-UK. 

Alison will succeed Susan Denyer, who has stepped down after 20 years as the Secretary of ICOMOS-UK. Susan’s rich and varied career spanned decades and involved work across many countries around the globe. She will continue to contribute to our World Heritage Scientific Committee.  

Alison said, ‘I am delighted to be joining ICOMOS-UK, and privileged to be able to build on the expertise and experience of so many committed individuals, groups and colleagues. My role is to ensure that the value of this is fully realised, in a complex and increasingly challenging environment, for the benefit of everyone who cares for cultural heritage, or who might gain from being part of caring for it’.