International Council of Museums

The International Council of Museums , ICOM ( eng. International Council of Museums , abbr. Eng. ICOM ) is a non-governmental professional international organization created in 1946 in Paris (France). ICOM has the highest advisory status of category “A” at UNESCO and at the UN Economic and Social Council. ICOM is an international organization of museums and museum specialists who are engaged in the storage, development and interaction of society and the world natural and cultural heritage, present and future, tangible and intangible heritage.

ICOM is funded primarily by contributions from committee members and is supported by UNESCO, the ICOM POTENTIAL FUND ^[1] and individual national committees. ICOM implements part of the UNESCO program for museums. UNESCO headquarters is located in France in Paris , there is also the ICOM secretariat, as well as the ICOM - UNESCO information center.

In accordance with the Charter, the goals and objectives of ICOM are:

• promoting museum development worldwide;
• preservation of heritage and the fight against the illicit trade in cultural property;
• training museum workers and raising professional standards;
• assistance to museums and museum workers;
• establishing cooperation between museum institutions and specialists from different countries.

All this, in turn, contributes to the development of cooperation and mutual understanding between peoples. Currently, ICOM includes more than 30,000 individual and collective members from 165 countries of the world.

The Russian Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM Russia) has been a member of the International Council of Museums since 1957 (then the Soviet Committee). In 1992, the Soviet Committee was transformed into Russian. Today it unites more than 500 collective and individual members. ICOM has 15 affiliated international associations.