An Oral History of the Modern Commonwealth

The current project seeks to disseminate the findings of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies' AHRC-funded Commonwealth Oral History Project. The follow-on grant will fund an early-career academic to act as Project Officer on a full-time basis for 9 months. Working in close collaboration with the PI, they will have day-to-day responsibility for the organization of dissemination events and liaison with the Institute's partner bodies in the UK and in Malta. They will also produce the associated educational materials, reports, and will collaborate in producing the script for the public-engagement documentary. The project officer will also take a proactive role, in conjunction with the SAS Communications office, in liaising with journalists to link material from the COHP to current developments in the Commonwealth or anniversaries of major events in order to ensure that it feeds into news reporting.

Engaging a broader non-academic audience with the 'high-level' interviews of the COHP, we will introduce the project at the Bloomsbury Festival in October 2015. During the event we will ask local Bloomsbury residents and workers from Commonwealth countries to record on video how the Commonwealth's historical links have shaped their own lives. We intend to use some of this footage in the public-engagement documentary which will be part of the follow-on project.

A key event will be a launch seminar in Malta towards the end of November at the time of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). All national delegations and civil society organizations attending the meeting will be invited to send representatives, as will the global media. The event, which will be hosted by the University of Malta, will seek to identify possible lessons from the COHP interviews for contemporary policy-makers. The event will be filmed and included as a podcast on the COHP website.

The follow-on project has the enthusiastic support of the UK branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Members of the COHP team have been invited to offer a presentation on the website at the CPA's 'Westminster Workshop' in London in November. The CPA connects senior parliamentarians from across the Commonwealth including MPs speakers and parliamentary officials. The Westminster Workshop provides another important opportunity to disseminate the findings of the project to a genuinely global audience of policy-makers.

The project will draw upon the networks of the ICwS's sister institution, the Institute of Historical Research to organize a training seminar for teachers of History at post-GCSE secondary and tertiary level to demonstrate how the COHP website can be used as an educational resource.

In January 2016, the Institute will host an afternoon training seminar for staff at the Commonwealth Secretariat drawing out the key findings of the oral history project. The same month it will organize a seminar at Marlborough House, in collaboration with the communications department of the Commonwealth Secretariat, aimed at the London diplomatic community from both Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries.

The project officer will liaise with staff from the FCO's Historical department and Commonwealth department to produce a short report on the relevance of the COHP findings for contemporary British foreign policy. This will be presented to officials and ministers at a special seminar at the FCO, which the Foreign Office Historians have already agreed to host.

The project officer will also be responsible for developing the script for an internet-based 90-minute public-engagement documentary video (in partnership with Impact Media Specialists Ltd). This will feature interviews with the PI, CI and principal researcher of the COHP and will include excerpts from the COHP recordings and other historical materials, as well as footage filmed at some of the dissemination events.

This programme aligns precisely with the aims of the FoF funding scheme: it explores unforeseen pathways to impact by feeding into current developments and debates about the Commonwealth among its member states, particularly about the leadership of the organisation and the scope of its activities; it reaches well beyond academia; and it encourages a range of interactions with political and civil society groups and the general public; it engages with new audiences as well as building upon existing relationships.

Engagement with the media, and in particular the development of the documentary will help to maximize the value and reach of the outputs generated. The benefits to be gained from a better understanding of the Commonwealth among a range of user-groups will, by their nature, be long term and difficult to relate back directly to the impact of the dissemination project. It will, however, be possible to gauge its effectiveness through an appreciable increase in the use of the COHP project over the course of the year, and also by the citation of the COHP material in a range of outlets including academic works, the media and reports by policy-makers and think-tanks.

The fact that this project will operate out of the ICwS will ensure that the impact of the project extends well beyond the 9-month duration of its funding. Exploring and explaining the history, role and nature of the Commonwealth is an-ongoing part of the core business of the ICwS. It is expected that the events organized in concert with the FCO, the CPA and the Commonwealth Secretariat will strengthen their relationship with the ICwS, and will demonstrate the value of the COHP website to their staff and associates. As such, these and other organizations will be even more likely to call on the academic staff of the ICwS in subsequent years to participate in similar training events, again making use of the materials on the COHP website.

Each major activity undertaken will target a distinct constituency:

* The Bloomsbury Festival event will engage with the non-academic general public.

* The event at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association 'Westminster Workshop' will discuss the findings of the COHP with parliamentarians from across the Commonwealth.

* The event for Commonwealth ministers and officials at the CHOGM in Malta will deepen an understanding of the recent history of the Commonwealth among current policy-makers.

* The event at Marlborough House for staff from the Commonwealth Secretariat will demonstrate the relevance of the COHP interviews to some of the challenges currently faced by the Secretariat.

* The seminar held at Marlborough House for members of the diplomatic community in London will increase the awareness and understanding of the Commonwealth among overseas diplomats, particularly those from non-Commonwealth countries.

* The seminar for post-GCSE teachers of History will suggest ways in which the COHP material can be used as an educational resource, both for teaching and for the use of students in projects, essays and dissertations.

* The presentation for visiting students sponsored by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission will increase an understanding of the Commonwealth and its history among the next generation of academics, professionals and policy-makers.

* The presentation of the report on the COHP at special seminar for officials and ministers at the FCO will deepen policy-makers' understanding of the Commonwealth and demonstrate how the organisation's recent history is relevant to current policy issues. The FCO is keenly aware that it is vulnerable to a loss of 'institutional memory', and is enthusiastic about collaborating with the ICwS in this project.

* The documentary produced in partnership with Impact Media Specialists Ltd will introduce the findings of the COHP to a much wider audience both nationally and internationally.