The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has awarded Cambridge’s Scott Polar Research Institute £500,000 in funding, helping it to add exciting new objects to the hugely popular exhibition, Endurance We Conquer: the Shackleton Project.

It is likely that the funding will see a number of pieces related to Shackleton’s life and expeditions made available by private collectors, with some of these being seen by the public for the very first time.

The award is part of a £5million funding package called Collecting Cultures, which lends it support to 23 museums, libraries and archives across the UK. The award system was established in 2008 to help museums and galleries around the country purchase new pieces without waiting for them to come up at auction, and which enabled the Scott Polar Research Institute to grow its Arctic Visions project. In this funding round, the Institute will receive the largest single amount of any organisation involved.

Carole Souter, Chief Executive of the HLF said, “Collecting Cultures is unique: HLF is the only funding body that currently offers this type of advance funding support for museums, libraries and archives. Building on past success, a second incarnation of the initiative is back by popular demand.”