Prime Minister appoints Dr Aminul Hoque MBE to the board of Royal Museums Greenwich

On Tuesday 12 July the Department for Culture, Media and Sport announced that Goldsmiths, University of London lecturer Dr Aminul Hoque has been appointed as a Trustee for Royal Museums Greenwich, tasked with ensuring the popular attraction engages with local communities.

Dr Hoque’s position is voluntary and runs for four years, from September 2016 - 2020. Trustees are involved with the museums’ leadership and management, fundraising, and working with the government, especially the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Royal Museums Greenwich is the collective name for four popular attractions just a short journey from the Goldsmiths campus – the National Maritime Museum, Queen’s House art gallery, the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and the Cutty Sark. The museums are a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Dr Hoque says: 'I am delighted, humbled and excited to be appointed as a Trustee of Royal Museums Greenwich."

I am aware of the precious and very important role that museums play in society - protectors and custodians of history, art, science, knowledge, events and human stories via exhibitions and collections of historical artefacts. The museum is a place of learning, reflection, fun, critical pedagogy and education.

"It is such a great honour to be involved in the leadership and strategic governance of a museum of such national and international importance. I look forward to performing my role as a Trustee with sincerity, creativity and with diligence.”

Dr Aminul Hoque MBE is a lecturer in the Department of Educational Studies at Goldsmiths and is also a Visiting Lecturer at London Metropolitan University. Aminul gained his doctorate from Goldsmiths in 2011, with his ethnographic research forming the basis of his book British Islamic Identity: Third Generation Bangladeshis from East London (2015).

Dr Hoque has over 25 years of voluntary and professional experience in the youth, community and voluntary sector and is a recognised expert in young people and cultural identity. Aminul has been a trainer (since 2004) for the social services department at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets on their ‘Working with Bangladeshi Families’ course.

He has also contributed to many local youth work training programmes, researched and authored numerous evaluations and research projects in areas such as mentoring, drugs education, community sports and the phenomenon of youth gangs.

In 2004, Aminul developed an A-Z manual for working with disengaged and ‘hard to reach’ young people in Tower Hamlets as part of a borough-wide initiative led by Tower Hamlets College. He has also been a major contributor to national youth policy through involvement in research programmes such as the Nuffield (2008) enquiry into young people who are NEET (not in education, employment or training).

Aminul’s work has been recognised by accolades such as a National Training Award in 2002 and the Philip Lawrence Award in 2005. He was awarded an MBE in 2008 for services to youth justice in east London.

In addition to his passion for academia and youth and community work, Aminul is also a freelance journalist and broadcaster and has been involved in numerous BBC radio and television documentaries. His inaugural radio documentary, Islamic Pride, for which he was researcher/ broadcaster, was shortlisted for the prestigious Sony Awards in 2004. Aminul was also the lead trainer for the BBC’s popular internal Islam and Identity course between 2005 and 2009.