V&A Dundee has generated £304 million for the Scottish economy to date, according to a new report published ahead of its fifth anniversary.
It also found there have been 1.7m visits to the museum since it opened on September 15 2018.
This included about 500,000 people who came to Dundee for the first time as part of trips to the facility.
The research, by BOP Consulting and tialt, found the museum generated £234m of gross value added (GVA) impact in the five years since opening, in addition to a £70m GVA impact from its construction.
The report also found that between April 2023 and September 2023, V&A Dundee contributed 1685 jobs to Scotland, including 450 in Dundee – not just the people who work in the museum, but the wider network involved across the creative economy.
Leonie Bell, director of V&A Dundee, said: “Since opening, V&A Dundee has emerged as an important new voice for design and a gathering place for visitors from near and far, contributing to Dundee and Scotland’s creative, cultural and economic growth, despite the major challenges of the Covid pandemic.
“We’ve engaged over 1.7m people through exhibitions, events, learning and community activities, and with the architecture and engineering of our spectacular home, designed by Kengo Kuma.
“What matters now is how we grow from this point as part of Dundee and Scotland’s creative community, continuing to learn, listen and improve.”
She added: “V&A Dundee is a special place, a unique organisation with a local, national and international outlook rooted in and branching out from Dundee, the UK’s only Unesco City of Design.
“As we look to the next five years, we will remain ambitious, deepen our social impact in Dundee, reach out further across Scotland, and do more to champion design from Scotland and around the world.”
Researchers also found the museum brought many wider cultural and social benefits to Dundee and Scotland, including more than 270,000 engagements with the community and learning programme since it opened.
The museum will mark its birthday the day after the official anniversary, with celebrations on Saturday September 16 featuring free music performances including Be Charlotte and Andrew Wasylyk, free access to the Tartan exhibition and street food on the plaza.
There will also be family activities, free museum tours and the opening of a new permanent display on the museum’s architecture, Stories from the Building.
It has also worked with multiple designers and cultural organisations across Dundee, Scotland and around the world.
Deputy First Minister Shona Robison (above) said: “In the last five years V&A Dundee has embedded itself as both a vital cultural institution of Scotland and as a key driver of Dundee’s economy.
“Despite the enormous challenge of a global pandemic, V&A Dundee has emerged as a site which draws unprecedented numbers of visitors to the city and it has created high-quality jobs directly, as well as to contractors and to those working in the wider creative economy.
“Since 2018 V&A Dundee has transformed the waterfront area into an iconic destination to showcase world-class design.
“It has also reached out beyond its walls to embed itself in the civic life of Scotland. This is just the beginning of V&A Dundee’s contribution to Scotland.”
