World-renowned collections at three Oxford University museums will now be seen in a better light, thanks to grants totalling £185,000.

The Pitt Rivers Museum, the Ashmolean Museum and the University Museum of Natural History have all been given funding to help improve the displays of their collections.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport/ Wolfson Foundation Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund has awarded £12m to 65 different institutions around the country since it was set up in 2002.

Culture Minister David Lammy said: "These grants will ensure that our museums and galleries continue to broaden their appeal while maintaining the highest standards of collection care."

The Pitt Rivers Museum grant of £70,125 is for exhibition cases between the Pitt Rivers's existing galleries and the major new extension to the museum now being built.

The extension, due to be completed at the end of next year, will provide state-of-the-art research space in addition to much-needed new public facilities.

Michael O'Hanlon, the museum's director, said: "It is important that the museum's new extension is not seen to be at the expense of the much-loved existing galleries.

"This generous award from the DCMS/Wolfson Foundation will allow us to commission exhibition cases in the appropriate period style."

The Ashmolean has been awarded a grant of £65,200 to fund a comprehensive database of the museum's diverse collections of fine and decorative arts, archaeology and casts of classical sculpture.

It will combine many general and research databases that have been created over the past 20 years, and merge them into a single system.

The collections management system will be an essential tool for accessing the collections through the Ashmolean website, providing available information for visitors and researchers worldwide.

Christopher Brown, director of the Ashmolean, said: "The collections management system will allow the museum to provide a much better service to the public."

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History has received £50,000 to enable it to continue improving its displays.

There will be new displays on insects, and on plant-related topics in collaboration with the Druce herbarium.

Jim Kennedy, director of the Natural History Museum, said: "This grant, together with matching funding from the Trust for Oxfordshire's Environment, represents a major step in the completion of an ongoing revision of our natural history displays."