10.08.2026: The Music Academic Partnership (MAP) at UK Music has run for 11 years and last year we celebrated its 10-year anniversary with an event at the House of Lords. The event summed up the partnership with both educators and industry, politicians and former students in attendance.

MAP was created to connect educators and the music industry directly to support the future professionals who make music in the UK the world-famous force that it is. Music is good for individuals, communities, and of course the economy. It offers benefits in terms of well-being, togetherness, and career opportunities – with the UK also benefitting from the huge amount of soft-power it generates. Everyone encounters and most engage with music on a daily basis – it is a constant in our lives that for many becomes a passion and for some becomes a career.

MAP supports those organisations and educators who nurture this complex ecosystem of talent – creative and business and everything in-between – in a diverse range of ways. From supporting students connecting with industry during our MAP Tour and guest lectures to staff opportunities linking in with industry at events (such as our legendary Summer Party) and directly with our UK Music members on a range of issues.

We celebrate the best of the network every year with the Outstanding MAP Graduate Awards (known as the OMGs) and for this year’s ceremony are partnering with Un-Convention in Manchester following three very successful years partnering with Sound City in Liverpool. We also draw on the amazing range of expertise and experience when working on policy – such as ongoing proposed changes to level 3 qualifications – that impacts the education, skills, and careers landscapes.

We understand the huge importance of the network in terms of supporting the next generation of the music industry, but MAP members also play a hugely important role as a part of the current wider music ecosystem. From musicians to researchers, staff to students, there are thousands upon thousands of people in the MAP network across the UK studying, teaching, playing, recording, working, researching, volunteering, and engaging in their local music scenes and we appreciate and value every single one.

MAP also provides an opportunity for collaboration in research and innovation such as through the MusicFutures project in Liverpool. UK Music supported MAP member the University of Liverpool (as lead partner of a consortium) to apply for an AHRC grant to work on strengthening Liverpool’s music scene through action research.

Back in 2015 when MAP launched it consisted of higher education institutions and two honorary members – The BRIT School and LIPA. Since then we have expanded it to include further education colleges, awarding bodies, a charity, and a primary school-aged music lesson provider. We are steadily building it into a network that allows us to not only truly be integrated with a range of experts across many different education and skills development stages but that also provides meaningful and impactful links in many different geographical areas of the UK.

In short, MAP interacts with and indeed underpins a lot of our work in the education, skills, and careers space. It is a valuable network and one we are proud to coordinate.

If you’d be interested in exploring whether your organisation or institution could get involved in MAP please contact Dr Oliver Morris on: oliver.morris@ukmusic.org

A full list of MAP members can be found here along with other info including on the OMGs: Music Academic Partnership: MAP – UK Music

A summary of the UK Music Summer Party can be found here: UK Music Chief Executive Tom Kiehl Highlights Big Opportunities for the Sector at UK Music Summer Party – UK Music

Here is a story on the 2025 OMG Awards: UK Music Returns to Liverpool’s Sound City to Celebrate Outstanding MAP Graduate Awards – UK Music

House of Lords MAP Anniversary celebration event: UK Music Celebrates 10 Years of Music Academic Partnership with Special Event in Parliament – UK Music

Details on the level 3 qualifications House of Lords’ Debate: Peers Raise Concerns Over Level 3 Qualification Changes – UK Music

To read more about MusicFutures: https://musicfutures.co.uk/about/