Juliette Raoul-Duval is now President of ICOM Europe and member of the Board of Directors of ICOM France.
Since 1997, her entire career has been devoted to the service of museums. First head of the museums office at the Ministry of National Education and Higher Education, she joined the Palais de la Découverte in 1997, then the Musée des Arts et Métiers in 2003 as Deputy Director and Deputy Director, in charge of institutional relations.
Member of ICOM for 25 years, she was a member of the ICTOP Committee, then a member of the bureau and vice-president of the international committee of scientific and technical museums CIMUSET.
She was president of ICOM France, until September 2022. In this position, she actively contributed to nourishing the reflection on museums, their definition, their missions, the major challenges they face. It has piloted dozens of debates between professionals, in France and abroad, by inviting institutional, political and scientific leaders and by opening up the most lively subjects for discussion: restitution, resources, sustainable development, the paradoxes of 21st century museums…
She devoted many sessions to exploring the crucial question of museum professions and their development, as part of a cycle in partnership with the National Heritage Institute: "What does it mean to be a museum professional” (2017), “What does it mean to be a museum professional in Europe today”? (2018), more recently on conservation and restoration professions. She participated in the reflection and the defense of the status of conservators-restorers at the invitation of the FFCR.
Committed to making these reflections accessible to as many people as possible, she has systematized their presentation in a hybrid format and their simultaneous translation into English, French and Spanish for three years. All these debates are published online and in the ICOM France collection. In this way, they contribute to advancing the recognition of the professional singularity of museum professions.
Juliette Raoul-Duval has been particularly involved in the international organization ICOM, in particular on the definition of the museum. 50 professionals from around the world met at the invitation of ICOM France in March 2020 in Paris to ask themselves “what definition do museums need”. A member for three years of the Define working group, she accompanied the participatory process implemented to formulate a consensual definition, voted last August in Prague. It helps to support its accurate translation into as many languages as possible.
From March 2022, it has been strongly committed alongside Ukrainian museum professionals, organizing their dialogue with French museums to identify urgent needs. Following these meetings on the platform, many French museums have mobilized to give materials essential for the protection of the collections. 60 tons of donations were transported in 4 convoys to Ukraine. This solidarity will continue and grow in particular with the coordinated mobilization of many European countries under the leadership of ICOM Europe.