‘Outreach to Ownership’, an cross-border research pilot funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and run by Historic England (HE) and Historic Environment Scotland (HES) is seeking applications by 3 January.
… projects will adopt a ‘hub and spokes’ model…
AHRC writes:
Outreach to Ownership led by Historic England and Historic Environment Scotland will help empower local communities across the UK to tell a positive collective story about our collections and heritage, and in doing so expand, diversify and improve access to our shared cultural assets.
Though based at Independent Research Organisations, the projects will adopt a ‘hub and spokes’ model, with a significant part of the funding being allocated to the ‘spokes’ – small, local and regional collections organisations across the UK.
See ahrc.ukri.org
Historic England and Historic Environment Scotland write:
‘Outreach to Ownership’, an innovative cross-border research pilot has been announced by Historic England and Historic Environment Scotland. The project will run until September 2022 and is being funded by a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Community empowerment is a key focus for UK and devolved governments. Increasingly we are asking and empowering communities to shape, participate in, and even take responsibility for the design and delivery of cultural services.
This pilot will enable communities to undertake research into these trends across the heritage and cultural sectors encompassing galleries, libraries, archives, museums, heritage organisations, historic places, parks and gardens.
Using an innovative ‘hub and spokes’ structure, Historic England and Historic Environment Scotland will support eight partner organisations across England and Scotland to explore a variety of inclusive approaches to community engagement.
Across the course of the next year, grants totalling £125,000 will be given to the partner organisations to support their research. Alongside this funding, Historic England and Historic Environment Scotland will facilitate a programme of workshops to build connections, answer the training and skills needs of partners and allow them to share their knowledge with a view to demonstrating the contribution that an inclusive, community-engaged culture sector can make to local development and national policy.
We are delighted to have this opportunity to support the sector and to learn from smaller organisations already achieving great things with and for their local communities….
UPDATE – In response to public feedback on this programme we have:
- Extended the application deadline to 5:30pm on Monday 3 January 2022
- Expanded the range of funding available per project to £15,000–£30,000
£125,000 worth of funding has been made available for community-led research into pressing issues facing the UK’s culture and heritage sectors. We’re looking to provide grants of £15,000–£30,000 per project to support up to eight locally-led research projects across Scotland and England.
Themes to explore might include (but are by no means limited to) volunteering; community ownership of buildings or monuments; community delivery of cultural services (archives, libraries, museums); succession planning; and promoting equality, diversity and inclusion at local level. All successful applicants will be supported in their work through a series of capacity building and knowledge sharing workshops.
We invite applications from a range of culture sector organisations (including galleries, libraries, archives, museums, heritage organisations, historic places, parks and gardens) of all sizes and governance structures in Scotland and England.
Successful applicants will be experienced in inclusive approaches to community engagement, with strong existing networks of community stakeholders and a proven track record of inclusive engagement delivery.
They will be well connected, with good experience of partnership working and knowledge exchange with different culture sector organisations. Partners are not necessarily expected to be experienced in developing and delivering research.
We want to ensure that this pilot programme has wide geographical coverage not just across England and Scotland but also across different types of place (for example rural and isolated, towns, cities, villages, coastal places, island communities).
Applications should demonstrate a close link between their research proposition and the aims of this pilot.
All organisations across England and Scotland not accredited as Independent Research Organisations (IROs) are eligible to apply. This includes, but is not limited to, local authorities, charitable trusts and limited companies across England and Scotland.
A panel consisting of internal and external experts will judge the proposals and those that are successful will be expected to start their research projects in January 2022….
Download Outreach to Ownership Call for Partners
For more information contact OutreachToOwnership@HistoricEngland.org.uk
