Public benefit, cultural & economic impact & growth prospects of heritage science research: Creating a Heritage Science Innovation Systems Framework

"Heritage science" refers to the "fascinating, rich and diverse range of scientific challenges" associated with conserving movable and immovable heritage. Its significance should not be underestimated. Heritage, through tourism, makes a substantial contribution to the economy (£7.4 billion a year), and the sustainability of that contribution depends on heritage science. In November 2006, we published a report entitled Science and Heritage in which we acknowledged that the UK had a high reputation in the field of heritage science but warned that UK standing was "under threat" and that the heritage science sector was "fragmented and under-valued". (House of Lords Science and Technology Committee (2012). Science and Heritage: A follow-up. London: HMSO p4)

In 2007, on the recommendations of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) launched the Science and Heritage Programme to fund research activities to deepen understanding and widen participation in heritage science. During the following 7 years, this £8.1 million multi-disciplinary, collaborative Programme has funded 48 projects involving more than 300 researchers, 234 institutions and 50 industry partners both in the UK and overseas.

The purpose of this Impact Fellowship proposal is to strengthen the dissemination of research activities supported by the Science and Heritage Programme, with a particular focus on developing the relationship between heritage science researchers and industry in order to promote heritage science innovation and to inform policymakers of the value of heritage science to culture and the economy.
For heritage science researchers to fully contribute to public benefit and economic growth a shift in attitude by both researchers and industry has to take place to create stronger strategic links and to exploit opportunities which anecdotal evidence suggests there are industry sectors that could benefit from heritage science research and innovation. Currently, the heritage tourism industry is the best understood industry utilising heritage science research and this will be considered alongside other business sectors such as construction and property development; creative media; insurance; forensics and security and sensors and instrumentation.

Through a series of workshops, face-to-face interviews and data collection and analysis, the Fellowship will identify the benefits, impacts and growth opportunities produced by heritage science research and innovation, along with the research projects that have contributed wider benefits to policy, industry and the heritage sector and the industry sectors that utilise, or could utilise heritage science research. By examining industry needs, the skills and training required by future heritage scientists to engage with industry can be identified and evidence can be provided to produce recommendations on how policy could support the development of an innovation systems framework for heritage science. This will in turn be used to promote an innovation culture among researchers and industry willing to explore the business potential of research outputs. The research will be underpinned by a number of leadership development activities including publishing commissioned articles for Research Fortnight and Research Professional.

Key outputs from the research will be published on the Science and Heritage Programme website and will include: a database of projects that demonstrate the benefits and impacts of heritage science research; a case study on skills training for heritage scientists and recommendations on how policy could support the development of an innovation systems framework for heritage science.

The main research beneficiaries will be policy, industry and heritage. Policymakers include national and EU governments and international bodies; industry includes the business/private sector, practitioner bodies and business arms of heritage organisations and heritage includes museums, galleries, heritage organisations and professional bodies. The following users and beneficiaries have recognised the Fellowship with letters of support: DCMS (policy); Qi3 (industry); National Heritage Science Forum (NHSF), the Institute for Conservation (ICON) and English Heritage (heritage). The public will benefit through enhanced economic activity strengthened by the UK's intellectual leadership of heritage science and its engagement with industry.

International dissemination of the Science and Heritage Programme (SHP) will be reinforced by impact-enhancing policy actions. By demonstrating connections between producers and beneficiaries of research and innovation, policymakers will be better informed of the added value of heritage science to culture and the economy. Communicating the Fellowship outcomes to the EU's Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage and Global Change and ICCROM's Conservation Science Forum will strengthen the UK's global position in cultural heritage policy, research and practice. Recommendations will be published on how policy could unblock the system and support development of a heritage science innovation systems framework and evidence on the value of heritage science will be contributed to the Comprehensive Spending Review 2015.

The Fellowship will build on the fifty industry partners that engaged with SHP research. Its main focus will be to understand the business take up of heritage science outputs and determine the value chain leading to better integration of research results into company decisions. By creating a heritage science innovation systems framework, industry will benefit from a decision support tool to improve engagement with heritage science research leading to economic growth. The opportunity of raising heritage science as a future theme with world business leaders at World Economic Forum, Davos has begun to be explored.

Two heritage lead bodies in the UK, the NHSF and ICON will benefit directly from the Impact Fellowship. The NHSF, the UK's cross-disciplinary voice for heritage science, will be strengthened through the direct link between the Fellowship's aim to improve understanding of the processes connecting heritage science research to industry and the strategic objectives of the NHSF Delivery Plan. ICON will benefit from the addition of complementary information on heritage science to its workforce intelligence research.

These wider impacts will be further enhanced by the publication of three reports for Research Fortnight and Research Professional during the Fellowship, underpinned with enabling actions to strengthen the research base including a database of heritage science R&I projects; research/industry workshops, interviews and questionnaire results; case studies demonstrating value and skills training; business advocacy models, and a heritage science innovation systems framework. Among the first to benefit will be the 180 named SHP researchers including PhDs, Co-Is, PIs, Postdocs and named collaborative researchers.

To conclude, the Fellowship can benefit industry by improving performance. The industry skills case study will exemplify how a skilled workforce can be delivered to the labour market carrying both skills and scientific methods to business, charities and philanthropic sectors. This may in turn attract direct investment in order to achieve proximity to talented people and high quality science. The Fellowship will also ease the way in which industry works with universities enabling quality research to attract investment. It could improve public policy by demonstrating that less transactional and more long-term business partnerships can be created.