Bringing the Past to the Present: measuring, maximising and transforming public benefit from UK government infrastructure investment in archaeology

Archaeological investigation is a crucial component of infrastructure projects (including rail, road, airports, energy and aggregates), employing hundreds of archaeologists from across the EU. In the UK over £200m will be spent by government on archaeology within infrastructure projects in the period 2018-2022. Europe-wide, the infrastructure spend on archaeology will be at least £1.5billion.

The hundreds of millions invested in the field of development-led archaeology are audited as part of the construction process, but the question of public benefit and value has not been audited in the same way. There are no consistent, transparent criteria for assessing the knowledge generated, or the social, cultural and economic benefits delivered through this archaeology, despite the fact that the historic environment has untapped potential to improve social cohesion and tackle inequalities through knowledge creation and participatory action research. Crucial to the sustainability of the fragmented archaeological profession is the effective and relevant communication of results to a variety of audiences, but appropriate methods and innovative solutions are often instigated on an ad hoc basis and their relative success are not evaluated.

This Future Leaders Fellowship project led by Dr Sadie Watson will have the long-term aim of developing systems that allow benefit to be measured across infrastructure schemes and in doing so to transform the outputs from these programmes of archaeological work, helping to deliver knowledge that is relevant, creative and digitally accessible to a wider range of audiences. The UK has the potential to be a world leader in this area.

The Fellowship project will undertake a review of existing systems already in place for measuring impact and outcomes across the creative and cultural sectors, sciences and business to identify cross-discipline techniques. The project will consult at different scales - across the archaeology sector, HEIs, government, the public (engaged and not yet engaged audiences) and creative industries to understand which new outputs will deliver the greatest impact. The Fellowship project will study comparator international projects, where infrastructure spending has impacted upon archaeology, and review their success.

The research will identify and design consistent and transparent systems that provide frameworks for assessing the social, economic and cultural benefits of archaeological work conducted as part of infrastructure development, and qualitatively improve the relevance and usefulness of knowledge generated through this archaeological work.
Resulting guidance will enable standardised and sustainable cultural auditing of the impact of this archaeological work. It will provide a clear set of bespoke recommendations for future projects to enhance policy at central and local levels, and to improve project design, ensuring that the societal impact of archaeological knowledge and experience is considered throughout. It will encourage innovation in the planning, implementation and dissemination of archaeological projects, and collaboration across sectors to increase participation in archaeology, encourage participants in archaeological projects associated with infrastructure (both professional and voluntary) to engage in reflective practice, assessing their own roles and contributions, and encourage participation in archaeology amongst previously under-represented audiences, through innovative engagement methods.

A broad range of stakeholders, beyond Higher Education Institutions, will be impacted by the undertaking of this research and the generation of its outputs. The archaeology sector and policy makers in the UK and internationally, will benefit from the main output of the project, the production of a 'Toolkit' for future projects of all sizes and budgets, enabling the public benefit to be the primary driver for any dissemination as well as participation during the projects. This toolkit will set out the stages necessary to ensure public benefit is the leading consideration, will provide Best Practice examples and will steer the sector through project design and management with the aim of ensuring exemplary impacts. Communities beyond the archaeology and historic environment sector will gain opportunities to increase their awareness of cultural heritage, skills and career development through widening participation, personal growth and improved self-belief after participation in archaeology, and communities at large will be empowered to contribute to knowledge creation.