Swarm Intelligence: insects, humans and information on the move

This follow-on funding application is connected to The War of the Locust: science, politics, culture and collaboration in the Anti-Locust Research Centre, 1940-45, an AHRC Science in Culture ECR Developmental Award for 2016-17. Over the past year the team's four Investigators have generated new dialogues between history, entomology, ecology and art in examining the work of the British Empire's 'Anti-Locust Research Centre': a remarkable organisation that sought, across the twentieth-century, to counter one of mankind's oldest threats. The current follow-on funding application is to develop our engagement with new non-academic audiences and in more ambitious and creative ways than originally conceived.

The records of the ALRC, housed in the Natural History Museum's offsite store in south west London, are unique, substantially uncatalogued, and prior to the commencement of our project were essentially unexplored. The time spent engaging closely with such a rich body of archival material has opened up exciting possibilities for collaboration which could not have been anticipated at the project's conception.

The current application seeks funding to support two opportunities for collaboration, both of which have been the subject of preparatory discussion with relevant stakeholders. The first is with the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (UNFAO) in Rome, whose 'Locust Group' is the contemporary equivalent (and the direct successor) of the ALRC today; here we seek funds to support two knowledge exchange seminars with this international policy organisation. The second collaboration is with the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, home to 80,000 locust specimens collected by the ALRC and unintentionally separated from the documentary material in London; here, we seek funds to develop a public installation in the Cardiff Museum which will present the complexities of interdisciplinary work, the puzzle of reassembling the disaggregated elements of this archive, and the ALRC's own efforts to gather and sort complex information in the pre-digital age.

While the activities for which we seek support engage with different publics, all aim to bring the contents of this hidden archive, and our research reflections upon it, into wider view.

The outputs from our current project privilege academic understanding, with a secondary focus on impact gained from engagement with public audiences. These activities have acted as a proof of concept for this application, which extends the original pathways to impact by developing sustainable and long-term relationships with two key non-academic stakeholders.

The two UNFAO seminars are designed to address a clearly articulated non-academic need, including extending the range of data on which forecasts might be made, and comparing tensions between centralisation and de-centralisation in the history of anti-locust campaigns. We anticipate that disseminating our work on the information-processing capabilities of the ALRC, as well as the human stories underlying them, will enrich UNFAO's understanding of the political, social and cultural environments that affect their work: the experiences and reflections of participants in both knowledge exchange seminars will be captured (SurveyMonkey) and compared with the results of the pre-meeting questionnaire. The second meeting, with representatives from across North Africa and the Middle East, will reach a particularly wide user audience, but staff of Locust Group will further promote the outcomes of both seminars through its website and communications platform (Spark). At the project's end the Director of Locust Group will deliver a short report assessing its impact on practice; we anticipate this will be the launch pad for deeper collaboration in a larger grant.

Our collaboration with the National Museum of Wales seeks to restore to view a forgotten collection and to create an engaging public installation that addresses wider themes of interest to the Museum. As such, the project will deepen curators' knowledge of their own collections and build capacities in the Natural Sciences division for collaborating with arts and humanities researchers. The work of identifying and contextualising archival materials for display will also ensure that the project's benefits extend beyond the award period. An important part of this will involve creating original film content to convey the scope of both the ALRC's work and our own investigations into its past. In doing so we shall make particular use of digital files and film in preparing the installation so as to maximise opportunities for subsequent dissemination, including online (as will the modular design of the installation itself, and NMW's strong connections with other interested audiences and display spaces, including Aberystwyth University). The NMW has established systems of measuring impact with which we will work closely to develop appropriate means of assessment as part of the installation design process. At the project's end, we intend to draw on this information to explore pathways to further impact and collaboration.

Together, our initiatives with UNFAO and NMW allow for a wider and more innovative dissemination of our research than originally proposed, while meeting a set of clear non-academic needs concerning man's relationship with this powerful organism. Both arise out of unexpected connections that emerged from our research on the ALRC archive, and both seek to generate relationships that will outlast the grant itself.