Centraal Museum & Awareways: Collaborating on cultural strengthening

What began as a shared urgency for cyber resilience has grown into a partnership where knowledge, culture, and Utrecht-based connectivity converge. We would like to tell you more about it, based on a conversation between July Ligtenberg (Head of Operations) and Paul Schuiling (Head of Development & Philanthropy) from the Centraal Museum, and Leon Baauw (Business Development) from Awareways.

The Centraal Museum has existed since 1838, making it the oldest municipal museum in the Netherlands. The location on Agnietenstraat alone offers an impressive view of Utrecht, featuring the largest Rietveld collection in the world, the Dick Bruna archive, the fashion of Iris van Herpen, paintings by the Utrecht Caravaggisti, and the thousand-year-old Utrecht Ship. Additionally, the organisation manages the Rietveld Schröder House (a UNESCO World Heritage site) and the Miffy Museum. Together, these locations display a beautiful mix of art, city history, fashion, and applied arts, making them a focal point for the city's cultural experience.

Culture is an excellent bridge to the collaboration, as Awareways, with its creative and demonstrably effective behavioural change programmes, strives for a strong security culture within organisations and beyond. Furthermore, there is a logical overlap between the physical security of the treasures in the museum and the digital security of those same showpieces (the network security of the Louvre was recently bypassed in a heist using the password ‘Louvre’!), as well as all the surrounding data. “Part of our collection lives digitally,” says July. “Quite simply, you cannot afford to lose that.”

“Our approach is not just about knowledge, but about the human factor, about behavioural and cultural change,” Leon responds. “You don’t achieve that with good learning programmes alone, but with personal guidance and a tailored approach that fits the type of organisation—full of recognisable and current examples that resonate with employees.”

“Moreover, we feel a strong connection to the cultural sector. Many colleagues come from creative backgrounds, which serves as a catalyst for the innovative power of our Awareways Studio team. It is a sector we know well and one we want to contribute to. Collaborating with an institution like the Centraal Museum is, of course, wonderful; that’s how the news was received here too. It is a project for and by Utrecht, and as a Dutch party, we also know the national market and culture very well. We see that organisations increasingly want to buy locally. Not an American platform that offers little service, but working with a Dutch party where you can just drop by.”

“Our tailor-made approach is also a factor in this; we establish a strong culture around digital security. Keeping a Utrecht institution secure is right up our street and fits within our mission to build a secure digital future. We also really want to give something back to Utrecht, for example by working with The Utrecht Library to make the citizens of Utrecht more resilient.”

The Centraal Museum plays a central role in the cultural identity of Utrecht. It manages valuable collections, attracts a wide audience, and is therefore a visible and influential institution. This also means a great responsibility, both for the physical security of the collection and for information security behind the scenes.

“Naturally, a museum guards its crown jewels physically,” says July. “Security, monitoring, climate-controlled storage, depot management. But there is much more to it. Our digital archive is enormous and contains not only images but also descriptions, restoration reports, loan information, provenance research… everything you can tell about the physical collection. In many cases, there is enormous art-historical value involved.”

“Take those provenance studies,” Paul adds. “They allow us to trace where a work of art has been over time. This prevents us from having works in the collection that were looted during the Second World War, for example, as those belong to their rightful owners. That kind of information must be stored securely and reliably. Sometimes the entire collection is combed through to determine provenance. So, you must have that well-organised digitally.”

“As part of the collaboration, we launched the Awareways Culture Scan on 1 December, which will run for several weeks,” July continues. Through the Culture Scan, you discover how employees experience information security, privacy, and compliance. This provides clear insights to start measurably strengthening your security culture. “That will form the basis for the programme. We primarily need digital basic skills: better handling of information, smarter storage, secure sharing. But first, we want to look closely at the results of the scan and build from there; we will start that in January.”

Culture is a collection of human behaviours—but enriched, strengthened, and passed on through shared meaning. While many organisations still approach security primarily from a technical perspective, Awareways focuses on the human factor: behaviour, awareness, and security culture. Museums, in turn, form an environment where employees, volunteers, external parties, and visitors all come together—a complex context where human behaviour is crucial for security.

A museum is a textbook example of a place where behavioural change regarding information security has a major impact. It works the same way in organisations: culture arises from the sum of choices, reactions, and habits of employees, including their handling of risks and security. This is another reason why it makes perfect sense that the Centraal Museum, which manages extraordinary manifestations of human behaviour, and Awareways, which focuses on consciously and securely shaping behaviour (and specifically tries to unlearn certain excesses), have found each other. “Looking at a subject differently, from different perspectives, is pre-eminently something you can do in a museum,” says Leon, referring to the logical parallel between art and the creative approach in Awareways' strategy. “It is fertile ground for a long-term partnership. We are therefore looking broader than just the Centraal Museum, working together on a learning programme for the sector to strengthen the resilience of the entire museum world.”

“In our view, partnerships have changed,” Paul says regarding this. “At least, when it comes to a bag of money and placing a corporate logo. We are convinced that we can learn a lot from the business world, but also give a lot back from our own expertise. That is why we take great pleasure in developing sustainable partnerships in which we look for reciprocity. Utrecht-based companies often play a role in this: Jacobs Douwe Egberts, the Jaarbeurs, Pastoe… everyone has their own link to the museum.”

“Finally, Building a liveable culture together is the mission of the Centraal Museum. That goes further than just art: it is about how we live together, work together, and shape our society. Digital security is part of that too.”

The fact that the Awareways mission is Together we build a resilient security & privacy culture is ultimately the icing on the cake—as if the marketing teams of both organisations had already sealed the synergy before the collaboration even began.

As part of the new collaboration, under the banner of Awareways Connect, we brought together various security, privacy, and AI professionals at the Centraal Museum. One of the presentations was given by Marije Verduijn (Head of Collection Management), who provided insight into the challenges of protecting art—and the valuable information behind it—with a clear parallel to cybersecurity. The Romanian art theft and, more recently, the incident at the Louvre make that story all the more relevant.

It resulted in an inspiring afternoon where the protection of art served as a metaphor for the protection of valuable digital information. During the programme, it became clear once again that the core of a resilient organisational culture does not lie in technology, but in people and behaviour. In the video below, we present a brief look back.