MUN ends its commemorative year with twice as many visitors and the UMAC-ICOM award for excellence and innovation in university museums

The eight exhibitions presented at the Museo Universidad de Navarra during 2025 received a total of 197,424 visitors, representing an increase of 118.7% over the previous year, which recorded 90,275 visitors. " Museo Universidad de Navarra Collection, Four Decades," "Rafael Levenfeld. Photographer," "Eadweard Muybridge," "Dear Viewer, What Are You Looking At?," "Abstraction and Modernity," and "Other Fears" by Antoni Muntadas were the exhibitions of the commemorative year. In addition, with the aim of bringing the museum closer to all audiences and making it more accessible, free admission was offered this year as a gift to the public, an initiative that was supported by the Pamplona City Council. This more intense program and free admission may be reasons for the increased attendance at the MUN.

On the other hand, the MUN has just received the award for best university museum project at the ICOM International Congress, held in November in Dubai, for "Arts & Life," which presents the transfer of research and training in palliative medicine through art and the MUN collection. The staff of the palliative care research group at the University of Navarra, the ATLANTES group, were the actors and actresses who brought to life the play entitled "Cicely and David," a core element of the project. ATLANTES seeks to promote a positive mindset toward the care of patients with advanced and irreversible diseases. Through its studies and training and outreach activities, it promotes respect for human dignity and comprehensive professional care, including emotional and spiritual aspects in times of serious illness or at the end of life. More than 1,200 spectators have seen performances of this play, at its premiere in Pamplona (MUN and Civivox), and in performances in Malaga (as part of the 14th International Congress of the Spanish Society for Palliative Care), in Toronto (Canada), in Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), and in Mallorca (Es Baluard).

This new award joins those previously won by MUN:
- Award for innovation, design, and sustainability of the museum shop (2024) by the Culture & Museums International Tech Forum in Malaga.
- Best fundraising campaign (2023), bronze medal worldwide, awarded by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), the world's leading academic association.
- Best museum of the year in Europe (2018), according to the European Museum Forum of the Council of Europe.
- LAUS Design Award (2016), best museum signage, SILVER.

Some notable milestones during these ten years have been the inauguration of a total of 63 exhibitions; the nearly 350 shows and performing arts and music activities programmed; the eighth graduating class of the Master's Degree in Curatorial Studies; 90 artist residencies ; 43 members on its Board of Trustees; and 497 Friends of the Museum, 88% of whom are from Navarre, in addition to three new international additions during the year: iSiMAR, Audi Iruñamovil, and ATValor. In addition, over the last ten years, a total of 40 social entities participating in the sociARTE program have come to the MUN as a proposal for intervention through art in the educational-therapeutic field.

In addition, during 2025, the MUN collection has been exhibited in different cities in Spain: the work of photographer José Ortiz Echagüe was exhibited at the Casa de los Tiros museum in Granada; Miguel Bergasa's exhibition "Menonitas" at the Alcobendas Art Center; and the exhibition entitled "El sueño de la razón. From the Age of Enlightenment to Artificial Intelligence" at the Fundación Telefónica space, an exhibition that will remain open in the center of the capital until April 2026 and has already attracted more than 30,000 visitors.

The MUN has also had an impact beyond its building. Significant data on its digital audience shows thatsearches for the MUN and visits to its website have increased by23% this year. The number of followers on social media has grown, particularly on Instagram, where 1,296 of the current 14,112 followers are new this year. In turn, posts on this social network have reached more than half a million users.

These figures and achievements demonstrate that the commemorative year has had a major impact and, more importantly, show that young people, the university community, and the general public are increasingly turning to the MUN for the appreciation and enjoyment of art.