"Before The Last Traces Are Gone" - Reconnecting and Renegotiating Lost Heritages: Connected Communities Heritage Network

This proposal is to develop a network to disseminate and share research findings and experiences from Heritage projects funded by the AHRC's Connected Communities (CC) programme. The network will also provide support and guidance for communities involved in the co-design and co-production of heritage research.

Across the Connected Communities (CC) programme, many projects are working on heritage related topics. For instance De Montfort University is working on the Digital Building Heritage project which is exploring digital methodologies and technologies for meeting the needs of heritage community groups concerned with reconstructing and presenting historic buildings and their associated artifacts. Another example is the University of Hertfordshire's 'Partners in History' project which has focused on topics from regional new town heritage and First World War commemoration to the use of creative writing in museum education programmes. Other heritage projects are working in areas such as industrial heritage (mining, textiles, bicycle manufacture), transport heritage (waterways and railways), the history of workhouses and poverty, slavery history/black history. Several round table discussions at the AHRC Connected Communities Summit in July 2012 and more detailed subsequent discussions identified that there was considerable interest in setting up a cross-disciplinary network to enable collaborative activities between heritage related Connected Communities projects. The aim of the network would be to allow researchers and community groups to share and explore common themes and experiences and to identify gaps in knowledge to feed through into the design of future projects.

It is was also clear from the summit that many CC projects are generating a huge repository of heritage related research materials, knowledge and experience which could benefit both current and future CC projects. Specifically a number of pertinent shared research questions were identified:

-How can locally based heritage groups benefit from networking with each other both nationally and internationally?

-What can groups within a network learn from each other about making the most of academic expertise and accessing each others knowledge?

-How can locally based heritage groups draw in new participants and enable a greater variety of voices to be expressed?

-What is the role of digital technology in enabling community groups to discover and disseminate their heritage?

-How can spaces be created to challenge and disrupt older dominant narratives and enable new stories to be told and old stories re-understood?

-How do we facilitate better sharing of knowledge, expertise and insight across sectors, between 'amateur' historians and professionals, between communities and academia?

-How do we best address the 'skills gap' for academics working on community heritage initiatives?

The intention of the proposed network would be to provide a range of fora to allow both the University and Community partners on heritage related CC projects to collaborate and exchange knowledge. It is expected that this exchange would generate significant efficiencies and insights across the CC programme by reducing both the number of repeated mistakes and duplicated research as well as help identify and disseminate best practice. Moreover it is hoped that this type of cross disciplinary and cross community collaboration will help identify new opportunities for developing community inspired co-created and co-designed heritage research.

As already stated, it is expected that the proposed heritage network would generate significant efficiencies and insights across the Connected Communities programme by reducing duplication and helping to identify and disseminate best practice. Moreover it is hoped that this type of cross disciplinary and cross community collaboration will help identify new opportunities for developing community inspired co-created and co-designed heritage research. This will directly benefit both Connected Community academic researchers and existing and potential community partners. This collaboration will be achieved through the creation of a range of on-line media platforms as well as face to face symposia which allow the sharing of experiences and knowledge exchange across a wide range of heritage related projects. It is anticipated that these combined activities will raise the public profile of the important work being conducted in community heritage through the Connected Communities programme, and create a sustainable resource to inform future research and practice in this area.