Aim
In October 2021 AHRC funded two pilot GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) research hubs. The aim of the investment was to explore how Independent Research Organisations (IROs) can support community-led research that would help to understand the social value of heritage and culture in the UK and promote more inclusive engagement with culture and heritage.
The pilot hubs operated on a devolved funding model, whereby we award the grant to a principal investigator at an (IRO with a second IRO as co-investigator, and each hub distributed funding to ‘spoke’ partner organisations to complete smaller projects.
Please refer to the additional information section, where further information on the work of the pilot hubs can be found, including links to the project’s evaluation material.
To provide longer-term investment, we are now looking to fund one consortium to become a hub for community-led heritage research. Through a framework of devolved funding, the hub will be expected to award, coordinate and support a cohort of the spoke projects across the UK.
The hub’s activity will be driven by the long-term research and engagement aims, and diversity and inclusion challenges of the communities that collaborate in the project. The hub will act as a centre of excellence and expertise in heritage and collections-based research and community participation.
It will provide a place to support the exchange of research and digital skills, to enable heritage research to become more accessible and usable to a range of audiences including researchers, members of the public, practitioners, policy makers and funders.
To do this the hub will operate on a hub and spokes model. The hub will support the spokes; smaller and regional GLAM/Heritage organisations and specific community and interest groups to undertake collections and heritage research, interpretation and engagement. The hub will have oversight of all of the projects and will act in a coordinating capacity.
The main aims of the Community-led Heritage Research and skills Hub will be:
- to enable GLAM/Heritage organisations without IRO status to engage in active research supported by a larger hub, and in doing so equip non-research-intensive GLAM/Heritage organisations with research and digital skills, knowledge and experience. A long-term aim would be to build a research culture and capacity across these spoke organisations
- to provide the opportunity for diverse communities and audiences to engage with, and to drive research within their cultural heritage, collections or historic environment. Delivering a more inclusive understanding of cultural heritage
- to empower those communities to utilise the learning and understanding, creating networks for longer-term change within the sector and a diversity of voices within GLAM/Heritage organisations
Scope
The hub will support the spoke projects; smaller and regional GLAM/Heritage organisations and specific community and interest groups to undertake collections and heritage research, interpretation and engagement. The hub will:
- manage funding opportunities to select the spoke projects. Please note applications to the hub (if there is a competition for funds) need to be light touch, and well-supported in development by the hub team to limit the demands on spoke partners and community groups
- have oversight of the spoke projects, coordinating activities, providing advice and support, creating a network
- develop and deliver a communications and stakeholder engagement plan to promote the funding opportunities and engage relevant stakeholders within the projects and work of the hub
- build research skills, digital skills and knowledge exchange within smaller GLAM/Heritage organisations and community groups
- develop a monitoring, evaluation and learning plan (in conjunction with AHRC) in order to manage the monitoring and evaluation of the spoke projects and produce an end-of-project evaluation report and other evaluation material
The spokes will comprise a small network of heritage organisations that want to develop, build upon, and champion constructive approaches to inclusive community-driven cultural and heritage themes.
The spokes will be supported by the hub to enable delivery on a range of activities that have been identified as specific priorities opportunities, or both, of purpose for the communities or sections of the public they aim to engage with. Areas of activity may include, but are not limited to:
- delivery of interdisciplinary workshops, seminars and other consultations and engagements with stakeholder communities on cultural and heritage themes
- commissioning small-scale research projects related to cultural and heritage assets, environments and collections
- exploring new reflective practices and participatory action research
- co-operative curation, interpretation, and narration in cultural and heritage programming
- validating approaches to inclusion and plurality of perspectives in collection-based research and engagement
- sharing or exchanging of skills
Thematic areas
An overall aim of the funding opportunity is to increase collaboration across the heritage sector, to encourage a plurality of voices in collections-based research and community engagement. We want to encourage dialogue, knowledge exchange and participatory research which privileges the partnerships between smaller and regional GLAM/Heritage organisations and specific community and interest groups.
Examples of thematic areas from the pilot hubs include:
- equality, diversity and inclusion for community engagement
- widening access to culture and heritage assets (in person and online)
- exploring community identities and histories
- heritage research as community-led practice
- inclusive, constructive civic discourse on culture and heritage
- social justice in a cultural context
Please note these are just examples taken from the pilot hub funding opportunity, it will be up to you to decide on your own thematic areas to reflect the current needs of the GLAM/Heritage sector.
For more information on the background of this funding opportunity and the work of the pilot hubs, go to the Additional information section.
Equality, diversity and inclusion
Promoting Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) is an integral part of UKRI’s vision to deliver new knowledge and an enriched, healthier, more sustainable and resilient society and culture, and to contribute to a more prosperous economy. EDI is also strongly embedded in AHRC’s Theory of Change and Strategic Delivery Plan for 2022-25 and we have recently refreshed our EDI Action Plan. The hub will play an important role in helping us deliver against our EDI commitments.
The hub will also play a crucial role in increasing the diversity of GLAM audiences and equitable participation in research. It is essential that throughout your application you clearly demonstrate how you have considered and will address challenges and opportunities related to EDI.
Public engagement
Community engagement with diverse public groups will be at the heart of the new hub and spoke projects. You should ensure that equitable and collaborative community engagement, where communities are given agency and decision-making power and placed at the heart of participatory collections-based research, is woven into the hub’s ethos, and is clearly articulated in the proposal, and throughout hub and spoke activities.
This community engagement activity will lead to improved outcomes for collections-based research, by making it more relevant and valuable to the host organisation, to its public audiences and to the communities involved in delivering it; positive impacts upon the personal or professional lives of the communities involved in the spoke projects (for example, improved skills leading to career opportunities, greater representation of diverse groups in public collections, improved wellbeing and new networks).
Governance and reporting
We will convene an advisory group to support the hub leadership team which will include independent representation from sector leaders, community practitioners, academics and an AHRC representative.
The hub will be required to provide us with regular updates and reporting, with key performance indicators and metrics to be agreed post-award, with a final report submitted at the end of the award period. The successful applicant will work with us to develop a monitoring, evaluation and learning plan.
Long term sustainability
We do not expect the hub to be completely self-sustaining after three years, but we do expect you to have plans from the start to build up that sustainability over the three years. We see this investment as one that will have a legacy beyond the funded period, both within and beyond the organisations involved in the hub.
You will need to have clear plans for where the hub will be in three years, what it will have achieved, and what its longer-term role will be. The hub will also need to have plans for how it will sit as part of the institutions and partners involved as well as any potential revenue streams, additional funding opportunities, and sponsorships, as well as potential opportunities for new partnerships.
During the award, you will need to build regional networks with HEIs, IROs and community-led groups, which will develop potential for the spokes to have onward plans beyond the three years.
Impact
We expect the hub to deliver clearly defined, positive impacts across all objectives. Impact should be a major consideration throughout the scoping of your proposal, and during and beyond the lifetime of the hub.
You must demonstrate how you will deliver significant impact within and beyond research. As part of this you must include a logic model in your application demonstrating the changes the hub will bring about, and how your hub will bring about those changes.
Monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL)
We will work with the successful hub to agree a monitoring and evaluation plan in the starting phase of the award. In addition to standard Research Fish reporting, this is likely to include light touch quarterly reporting, including providing data required for internal reporting mechanisms, and more detailed annual reporting. We are also likely to ask for some form of interim and final evaluation or report.
We also expect to draw on the expertise of the hub to respond to other internal and external ad hoc reporting requests. You should ensure your proposal includes sufficient staff time to support this.
You will need to demonstrate how you will measure progress against the objectives and your own logic model, track impacts, and share learning with us and others. This should include plans for how the hub will measure a baseline against which any progression can be compared.
Building on existing investments and infrastructure
We expect the hub to leverage and add value to existing infrastructure and investments, within and beyond AHRC and UKRI, to maximise value and impact.
Similarly, AHRC and UKRI have made investments which could engage with and support the work of the hub. For example, the work of AHRC’s programme directors. Any digital outputs and assets that arise from the hub could also be sustained through AHRC’s infrastructure plans.
Where relevant in your proposal you should identify any key existing investments and infrastructure the hub would look to work with and how this would add value.
Duration
The duration of this award is for three years.
The award must start on 2 January 2025.
Funding available
We have allocated £953,000 for this funding opportunity. Indexation will be applied once the funding has been awarded.
We will fund the award using a combination of 80% and 100% of the Full Economic Cost (FEC). The following costs can be included at 100%:
- all devolved funding for the spoke projects
- hub staff time, such as the grant manager role (hub manager) and support staff
- staff time for co-leads from smaller GLAM/heritage organisations or the community sector (non-HEI/IROs)
All other costs should be costed at 80% FEC in line with standard UKRI terms and conditions.
Note: projects can be costed to include the full £953,000 available from UKRI, in addition to the standard research organisation 20% contribution required for all non-exception costs. As such, the FEC of your project may exceed £953,000, provided all costs meet UKRI’s FEC and transparent approach to costing guidelines.
We have taken this approach to allow you to shape proposals in the way you see best, and to offer flexibility when deciding on the proportion of funding allocated to the running of the hub, and the devolved funding to the projects.
You should cost your budget for the ‘hub funding strand’ and the ‘spoke projects (devolved) funding strand’. To allow flexibility, we have not specified what percentage funding should be allocated to the running of the hub, and how much should be allocated to the spokes.
As a guide, we would expect between 40-60% of the funding to be allocated to the spoke projects. Your chosen approach should be clearly outlined and justified within the application.
You can include costs for the following roles:
Project lead
Standard AHRC eligibility criteria will apply to this funding opportunity for UK project leads and research organisations.
You must be a resident in the UK and be hosted by an eligible research organisation (higher education institutions or recognised independent research organisations) as stated in AHRC’s Research Funding Guide.
If the project lead is an early career researcher, as defined by AHRC, a mentor must be included within the application. This mentor must be clearly outlined in the resources and cost justification section of the application form.
For mentoring cost, an hour per month of the mentor’s time should be built into the budget as a directly allocated cost and entered in the application form in the ‘directly allocated costs’ section. Estates and indirect costs for this one hour can also be charged to the grant.
Project co-lead
Project co-leads can be included from HEIs, IROs or from organisations outside of academia. Project co-leads from outside of academia can be costed at 100% FEC where justified and their time can be listed under ‘Exceptions’. Please note, 100% FEC ‘exceptions’ costs are only for staff time, all other costs relating to project co-leads from outside of academia (including estates and indirect costs) will be funded at 80% FEC.
Co-leads not based at eligible research organisations should submit a statement of support from their organisation (if they are based at an organisation) as part of your application. This will be used to assess how effectively the proposed work integrates with community assets and other organisations outside of academia.
Grant Manager (meaning a hub manager)
A grant manager (hub manager) must be included in the leadership team. Their role is to lead the administration of the hub and the devolved funding opportunities. They must be employed by the lead organisation and by exception, can be funded at 100% FEC. They might be a researcher, including an early career researcher (as defined by AHRC), or an individual with experience of community engagement projects, or from within the GLAM/Heritage sector.
Other professional staff, known as ‘other staff’ in Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S)
Applications can include other professional staff, as appropriate to the hub. They must be employed by the lead organisation or one of the collaborating organisations. They can be funded at 100% FEC if their role relates to the running of the hub or the delivery of the devolved funded projects (meaning not a research post). Their role must be to provide professional contributions to the project, for example:
- public or community engagement activities
- engaging and working equitably with broad and diverse public audiences and groups
- ethics and safeguarding
- providing practical guidance, training and support
- monitoring and evaluation, including reporting requirements
- communications
