Building Shared Heritages: Cultural Diversity in Leicester

University of Leicester

The main aim of ‘Building shared heritages’ is to develop further relationships between the University of Leicester and the wider community and to exchange knowledge in both the skills needed to conduct historical research and the content of the projects carried out by the local community groups. The aims of the project are to empower local community groups through enhancing their research skills and to develop networks between and amongst local history and community heritage groups and University researchers. We will devise and deliver face-to-face workshops and online training resources and provide mentoring in order to equip the HLF local groups with the skills to enhance their research projects and to give them the capacity to deliver on the grants for which they have been funded. We also see this as an opportunity for further development of a stimulating local and regional research culture in which local community members and academic researchers can engage in dialogue about research findings in the fields of heritage and local history.

These objectives will be achieved through the following short, medium, and long-term activities:

Short-Term: The award period will begin with the consolidation of existing researchers devising research training in history and archaeology. This will allow for knowledge exchange between different types of historical and archaeological researchers. The delivery of the workshops will have an immediate impact on the capabilities and capacity of the local heritage groups to conduct their research.

Medium-Term: Following on from the workshops the local community groups will also benefit from the online mentoring and site visits by the ECRs and members of the steering group. Further to this the podcasts from the workshops will also be uploaded and will thus be a consistent reference point for the groups.

Long-term: The online toolkits will be uploaded on to the project website to allow local community groups to access the training resources throughout their project. Furthermore, the University will work closely with the NCCPE and the HLF to manage the longer-term use of the resources. For example, the resources can be linked from the NCCPE and HLF websites to ensure that the work remains available for other community groups.

Throughout the project the dialogue between researchers and the local community groups concerning their project findings will lead to fruitful debate. Longer-term the potential for further co-produced and co-designed research bids will be enhanced through shared knowledge and through building up working relationships between the University and the community.

Visit our website at http://www.buildingsharedheritages.org/