Postgraduate Research and Skills
Historic England believes that supporting postgraduate research can contribute to the understanding and management of England’s heritage, address skills shortages in the heritage profession and give students the satisfaction and competitive edge of a research degree that has had demonstrable impact. We are partners in several Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTPs) and similar postgraduate research consortia across the country and can offer varying levels of partnership opportunities to researchers within these consortia, for mutual benefit.
New Collaborative Research on Historic Reservoirs
We are supporting collaborative research on historic reservoirs with the Schools of Architecture at the University of Liverpool and Lancaster University, the Centre for Place Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, and the Museum of English Rural Life.
Historic England is a partner on 'Waterborne: The Heritage, Culture and Environment of UK Reservoirs', a new collaborative research project. The project will support three PhD students to work on interlinked projects, and is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership.
Two of the studentships are already available to apply for. These both close on February 19 2024:
Research priorities for postgraduate research
We advise those researching within DTP institutions who are interested in working with Historic England to read our Research Strategy and Agenda.
Our Research Strategy provides an overview of the heritage research carried out by, or supported by Historic England. This is complimented by our Research Agenda (published July 2017) which provides a number of more specific research topics that could have practical impact in supporting the work of Historic England; and gives a list of research questions to guide those looking to do research that will help us achieve our mission.
Doctoral Training Partnerships
We take a strategic approach to our relationship with the Higher Education Sector by engaging in a number of carefully selected Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTPs) that provide excellent postgraduate research opportunities in a number of areas that match our own priorities.
DTPs are consortiums of universities that receive block grant awards from Research Councils to disburse as PhD studentship funding, with the universities themselves providing match funding at varying levels. These consortia work with a range of industry partners in the arts and humanities, such as Historic England, to provide opportunities for collaborative research and student development.
We are currently partners with the following DTPs
- The South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership
- The White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities
- Northern Bridge
- Midlands 3 Cities
- CHASE(in development)
- IAPETUS Doctoral Training Partnership (NERC funded)
Our approach to working with DTPs is focused around the following areas:
- Influencing - getting our research agenda into postgraduate research at a high level
- Improving Research Impact - ensuring practical outputs for heritage sector are a part of the impact of postgraduate research
- Individual Skills Development - actively developing the future workforce for the heritage sector
- Co-supervision - directly shaping the direction of postgraduate research and developing our future workforce
The level of support we can provide for individual students will vary from research project to research project. It will be assessed against our ability to offer in-house expertise and the resource availability - as well as the priority of the research being undertaken.
Those wanting further information on potential opportunities for partnership work around postgraduate research should contact the Postgraduate Research and Skills Officer using the details at the bottom of this page.
DTP Research student highlights
Archaeology and precision farming
Henry Webber is a PhD student funded through the South, West and Wales DTP, based at the University of Bristol and co-supervised by Amanda Chadburn (Senior National Rural and Environmental Adviser at Historic England).
He has recently published an entry on the new AHRC blog about his research into the intersection between archaeology and precision farming.
SEAHA Centre for Doctoral Training
We are a heritage partner of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Science and Engineering in Arts, Heritage and Archaeology (SEAHA), a collaboration between University College London, the University of Oxford and the University of Brighton, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
Through SEAHA we have been co-supervising a number of PhD projects on topics ranging from the development of a robust methodology for assessing moisture in solid brick walls; to a comparison of painting lining methods for historic house environments to developing Building Information Models from monitoring and simulation data in heritage buildings.
This article by SEAHA Deputy Director, Matija Strlic, tells more about the work of SEAHA and how Historic England is involved.
Please see the SEAHA website for details of any current opportunities.
