Welcome to the sixth and final issue of 2022. The proxy war between Russia and the West shows no sign of a peaceful resolution, but not only is the human cost is spiralling out of control, but the damage to monuments, institutions and cultural heritage is increasing daily, with unforgiving and irrevocable consequences. Every time our heritage is damaged or destroyed, we all suffer the loss. As a journal aimed at supporting reflective practice, we cannot stand back from the issues the world is currently facing. The current war has now thrown the issues of economic and social inequality, structural racism, and the precarious balance between international law and naked power into even starker relief, which only exacerbate the critical issue of climate change, which continues to call out for immediate and decisive action. For those new to the journal, Museum Management and Curatorship, now in its 37th year, remains one of the world’s leading journals for museum professionals. When the journal was originally founded it was explicitly intended as a resource for museum practitioners. Museums and museum professionals need high-quality academic research on which to base new projects and inform current practices, and new methodologies to help critically analyse their success or failure. Now more than ever they also need examples of best practice in governance and communication. The MMC remains and will continue to remain grounded in museum practice in all its diversity. The MMC is one of the few truly international museum journals. It continues to publish contributions from around the world, and is an important platform for scholars and professionals for whom English is not a first language. The MMC is not and cannot be a news magazine, but we are always looking at how best to respond as a journal to rapidly evolving situations, while still retaining the scholarly rigour of a peer-reviewed journal, which by its nature takes time and often patience. As we continue to wait for the current conflict to end, and for the careful work of conservation, restoration and reconstruction to begin, this issue looks at the growing use of social media as it continues to transform both the museum experience and the nature of critical debate so necessary for a functioning democracy. As always, we invite all of our readers to contribute to our ongoing reflection with their own ideas by writing to the team at [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you, and to working together to ensure the MMC continues to meet the needs of the entire museum field.
