Left: the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford - granted £150,000.

Ten museums around the country are to share grants totalling £2 million to help improve the quality of their displays, care of collections and gallery refurbishment. Museums in Liverpool, London, Bradford, Oxford and Newcastle will benefit.

The grants, funded jointly by the Department of Culture Media and Sport and the Wolfson Foundation, are the first phase of a new five-year joint Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund.

Right: Merseyside Maritime Museum:£200,000 to create major exhibition space.

"Top quality collections need top quality displays to bring them alive for museum visitors," said Tessa Blackstone, Arts Minister. "It is no surprise that those museums which take trouble over presenting their collections in an eye-catching and imaginative way, are rewarded with increased visitor numbers. The grants announced today will help ten museums around the country make more of their treasures."

"I am particularly grateful for the continued support of the Wolfson Foundation whose support for museums and galleries has done so much for them over the years."

Left: Geffrye Museum, London: £60,000 for new display.

"The Wolfson Foundation and the Department have been in partnership in many successful joint funding projects since 1990," said Lord Wolfson.

"I am delighted that we are again cooperating with the Department on a new five year joint fund to support our key museums and galleries to improve standards of display to their collections and exhibition spaces."

Right: Oxford University Museum Of Natural History: £165,000 refurbishment of displays in the Great Court and arcades.

The 2002-03 Fund was open to bids from the museums and galleries sponsored by DCMS and designated University based collections. The Fund total for each of the first two years, 2002-03 and 2003-04 is £2 million, with the Wolfson Foundation and DCMS each contributing £1 million.

The Wolfson Foundation is a charitable foundation set up in 1955 whose aims are the advancement of science, health, education and the arts and humanities. It has for a number of years supported the renovation of museums and galleries and the promotion of scientific research and education.

Grants were awarded to:

The Geffrye Museum, for a project funding the creation of a permanent display in one of the Museum's historic almshouses in London: awarded £60,000.

National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in Bradford were awarded £260,000 to convert an existing gallery to one dedicated to photography exhibitions and a permanent photographic collection which will include the Royal Photographic Society's Collection.

Merseyside Maritime Museum (National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside) will create a permanent exhibition suite to stage major exhibitions from the collections of Museum of Liverpool Life, HM Customs and Excise National Museum, Maritime Museum as well as touring exhibitions. Awarded £200,000

Sir John Soane's Museum in London will benefit from lighting improvements to the collections and interiors for which £350,000 has been awarded.

At Tate Britain improvements to environmental control and display of the North Duveen Sculpture Gallery and improved disabled access were awarded £350,000

The Victoria and Albert Museum have been awarded £300,000 for the refurbishment of the Painting Galleries to return them to their intended use of displaying 18th and 19th Century paintings.

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford was given £150,000 to establish a new Special Exhibitions Gallery.

In Newcastle, the Hancock Museum was granted £65,000 for the refurbishment of the Geology Balcony to create a Fossil Zone designed to be accessible to children and wheelchair users. Will include an information centre for microscopes where specimens can be handled.

Also in Oxford, the University Museum of Natural History was given £165,000 for the refurbishment of displays in the Great Court and arcades.

At the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford re-opening of a closed section of the Museum's upper gallery will be funded. This will allow the display of musical instruments though the ages and improvements to the lower gallery.