The hub at MOLA: a centre for social and environmental value
Lead Research Organisation:
Museum of London Archaeology
Department Name: Research and Education
Abstract
Development-led archaeology employs around 5,000 archaeologists, comprises 90% of the UK's archaeological work, and generates over £200m in revenue each year. Studies show that engaging in heritage-based activities contributes to wellbeing; as such, development-led archaeology has the capacity to significantly and positively impact communities throughout the UK. However, wellbeing-led programmes and research into archaeology's positive impacts are generally limited to academia and the third sector. MOLA, development-led archaeology's only IRO, seeks to explore, innovate, and evaluate the potential for development-led archaeology to create positive legacies for communities and their support systems (e.g., community groups, third sector organisations), embedding research into practice and expanding archaeology's impact on a national scale.
We seek to commercialise the Hub, a UKRI-research inspired virtual centre exploring how to transform development-led archaeology into Social Value. Creating Social Value, or positive social, environmental, and/or economic legacies, is enshrined in UK planning law and mandated for publicly-funded projects. Archaeology can create authentic, meaningful legacies for communities impacted by development, whilst fulfilling client Social Value KPIs. The Hub seeks to innovate new ways of working and creating positive impact in our sector.
The Hub has been piloting approaches to generating Social Value via commercial and community projects. We use research-based, innovative approaches to transform archaeology into meaningful outcomes for communities and places (e.g., using archaeology to foster community cohesion, support wellbeing, meet the needs of new audiences, etc.). We believe our approach is the best solution because our practice is based on extensive UKRI-funded research, which has taken place outside of various vested interests.
MOLA's Hub and its practices are, and will be, underpinned by research, including collaborations with academics, researchers, third sector organisations, community and clients to design, implement, and evaluate the impact that our outcomes-led programmes can make. A community investments stream will fund publicly-designed projects that explore new ways that community members harness archaeology for creating local, positive impacts. Hub projects which evidence positive impacts will be integrated into normal work practice, infusing traditional programmes with novel strategies to produce outcomes beneficial to communities, third sector and research organisations, and clients.
We seek to commercialise the Hub, a UKRI-research inspired virtual centre exploring how to transform development-led archaeology into Social Value. Creating Social Value, or positive social, environmental, and/or economic legacies, is enshrined in UK planning law and mandated for publicly-funded projects. Archaeology can create authentic, meaningful legacies for communities impacted by development, whilst fulfilling client Social Value KPIs. The Hub seeks to innovate new ways of working and creating positive impact in our sector.
The Hub has been piloting approaches to generating Social Value via commercial and community projects. We use research-based, innovative approaches to transform archaeology into meaningful outcomes for communities and places (e.g., using archaeology to foster community cohesion, support wellbeing, meet the needs of new audiences, etc.). We believe our approach is the best solution because our practice is based on extensive UKRI-funded research, which has taken place outside of various vested interests.
MOLA's Hub and its practices are, and will be, underpinned by research, including collaborations with academics, researchers, third sector organisations, community and clients to design, implement, and evaluate the impact that our outcomes-led programmes can make. A community investments stream will fund publicly-designed projects that explore new ways that community members harness archaeology for creating local, positive impacts. Hub projects which evidence positive impacts will be integrated into normal work practice, infusing traditional programmes with novel strategies to produce outcomes beneficial to communities, third sector and research organisations, and clients.
| Description | We intended to explore the potential of a spin-out from MOLA, UK development-led archaeology's only IRO. MOLA is also a charity, with existing expectations of outcomes that may have partially crossed over into our aspirations for the spin-out. In the event this made a spin-out too complex to navigate at the time of the ARC Accelerate grant research, which, taken along with team changes both on the grant and within MOLA rendered the spin-out impossible to pursue. However, the research undertaken during ARC Accelerate resulted in lengthy discussions with construction sector professionals, both those who would commission archaeological work and those who would commission social value work - both groups were wholly supportive of our insights. Marketing mentoring, presentation and pitching upskilling and the honing of communicating our technical messages to a non-expert audience was of particular value. The primary commercial impacts have been very valuable internally at MOLA where these skills have been utilised, and materials produced to expand them beyond the ARC attendees. We will take this forward through research into business (and charitable) models in archaeology and the heritage sector more widely, through research into commercial work in IROs (specifically those in the cultural sector although there are useful comparators elsewhere), and through expanding the commercial offer at MOLA. |
| Exploitation Route | There is much that the commercial operators within UK archaeology, and the contracting cultural heritage sector, can learn from the marketing skills we developed, the focus on communicating value in new ways to a client body and the need to evaluate projects in ways (and metrics) they will find useful and relevant. |
| Sectors | Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
| Description | The findings and more specifically, the learning of new skills, have been used in commercial settings to provide value-based offers of archaeological services that respond better to construction sector needs. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2024 |
| Sector | Construction,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Economic |
| Description | Engagement in London-wide network planning sector social-value focused events |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Attendance at, and extended networking through, events organised by groups such as Future for London. These are attended by planners, urban designers and construction sector professionals engaged in social value-driven work, most of whom had not heard of the potential of archaeology to provide social value. This opened up new potential income streams, as well as expanding the reach and impact of the research to new audiences. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |