Heritage

Established in 2013, the Heritage Partnerships Team enables innovative and mutually beneficial collaborations that connect Oxford’s world-leading expertise with the UK and International heritage sector. Based in Oxford’s Humanities Division, the team work with colleagues across the University, including through the Oxford University Heritage Network, to identify funding opportunities and build activity around strategic research areas. We work with a wide range of organisations across the heritage, museum and policy sectors, and lead an award-winning partnership with The National Trust. 

Activities range from student internships and research placements to large-scale collaborative projects with international, national and regional partners. The team also runs the highly-successful Heritage Pathway programme, a sector-facing training offer, which gives Oxford students and researchers the opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge of careers and current issues in the sector. 

The three pillars that support our work are: 

Building Partnerships: Drawing upon specialist sector knowledge and networks, our team facilitates research-led collaborations between the University of Oxford and the heritage sector. With a focus on Humanities research, we build interdisciplinary teams to address current issues and sector challenges facing heritage today.   

Growing Expertise: With a focus on knowledge exchange and innovation, we lead and support a range of initiatives to enable students, researchers and professional staff to develop skills and collaborative projects with sector partners. Activities include the flagship Heritage Pathway Researcher programme, academic fellowships, internships and student placements, DPhil (PhD) studentships, and staff training.  

Sharing Knowledge: We share the outcomes of partnership activities with a wide range of audiences, from public events and academic conferences, to online resources and publications. The team regularly share their own expertise in both sector and academic contexts, and are committed to staying up to date with new developments across both research and heritage practice. 

The Heritage Partnerships Team had a particular research specialism in the historic house. See Thames Valley Country House Partnership page for details of previous project. 

The Heritage Partnerships team aims to create an accessible and inclusive environment in all our interactions: individually, as a team, and in the events we run. We respect everyone’s accessibility and communication needs and do not ask people to ‘prove’ their needs. If you are interested in attending an event with us, please contact us at heritage@torch.ox.ac.uk to discuss how we can make it as accessible as possible for you. The Heritage Partnerships team is also committed to an anti-racism environment and is LGBTQ+ inclusive. Every term we review the status of our commitments to access & inclusion and designate concrete actions to further these commitments in the term ahead; if you wish to view or contribute to these, you are welcome to contact us.

Cover Image Credits: Cast iron Lighthouse at Whiteford Point by S P L (CC BY-ND 2.0); Oxford University Museum of Natural History by Chris Chabot (CC BY-NC 2.0); Fragment of the Antikythera Mechanism by Andrew Barclay (CC BY-NC 2.0); Archaeologists at work at Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve by AlaskaNPS (CC BY 2.0); ‘Histories, Mysteries and Future of Oxford’s Broad Street Heads’ Project © Keiko Ikeuchi / History of Science Museum, University of Oxford; ‘Last Supper in Pompeii’ Exhibition © Emily Jarrett / Ashmolean

The Heritage Partnership has enabled and supported the development of a range of larger collaborations – from Knowledge Exchange Fellowships to multi-year research collaborations – some of which are featured below: