Social values of National Trust for Scotland heritage places: Towards an organisational approach Phase One Research Underway.
image for illustration: Fiona Newton
…levels of engagement with the survey and the rich discussions….have provided us with a sizable body of data…
University of Stirling writes:
The project team had a busy few months in the latter part of 2023 as phase one of the research, the organisational scoping, got underway. In November we launched a survey, open to all National Trust for Scotland staff and volunteers, to explore current understandings and approaches to social value. There was excellent uptake of this opportunity to contribute to the project and we received over 100 responses to the survey.
During November and December, we also held three focus group discussions, involving 36 staff and volunteers. These took place across the country and were kindly hosted by the Trust teams at Culloden Visitor Centre in Inverness, Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Ayr, and at the Trust’s Head Office in Edinburgh.
The levels of engagement with the survey and the rich discussions at the focus groups have provided us with a sizable body of data, reflecting the experiences of individuals in a range of roles and locations from across the Trust. We will be complementing these activities with a smaller number of in-depth interviews over the coming months, to explore specific aspects of our findings.
We are also now preparing for the next phase of activities. This will involve working with around six pilot sites (natural and cultural heritage places from across the Trust’s portfolio) to explore the social values associated with these places and how knowledge of social values can be applied in operational and strategic processes, at site and organisational levels. As part of the organisational scoping, focus group members were asked to propose criteria to be considered in selecting the pilots. We are currently collating that feedback and hope to be able to agree the pilot sites over the coming weeks. As well as having a diversity of individual sites, we are also looking at the pilot sites as a group, and what collectively and comparatively they might help us to test and demonstrate about working with social values in a range of different scenarios.
While starting to liaise with Trust staff and volunteers and community groups around the pilot sites is an exciting prospect, the organisational scoping research has already provided some incredibly useful insights and ideas that will strengthen the case study research and shape how we approach the latter stages of the project.
We are very grateful to everyone who has participated in the project so far and look forward to continuing these discussions as we move into the next phase of the research.
See more background on the project
