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- NHSF and coronavirus response
- Members’ meeting on heritage science's impact
- British Science Week blogs
- 2020 budget and heritage science
- Heritage Alliance COVID-19 Guidance Hub
- National Lottery Heritage Fund- COVID 19 Survey
- Historic England COVID-19 guidance: Cleaning Historic Surfaces
- Government opts out of Creative Europe
- Nesta launches Arts & Culture Impact Fund
- Scotland’s Museum and Galleries recently published strategies
- Heritage Alliance Digital Fund
- AHRC funding opportunity: Where Next? Scoping Future Arts and Humanities Led Research
- Heritage science virtual events
- Job opportunity! British Museum – Head of Inorganic Conservation
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1. NHSF and Coronavirus response
In the space of the month since I last wrote this newsletter, coronavirus has profoundly changed the way we work and live.
The Forum is being supported from distributed home offices and we plan to maintain functions virtually, including working group meetings. Having just held a members' meeting and a trustee meeting at the beginning of March, our next meetings of this type are not due until 6th July. Clearly, we will review ongoing developments as we judge how best to put these into action.
Our representative contacts for each member organisation will have seen the email sent a couple of weeks ago asking for information on key issues faced by the sector to be fed in to the Forum. This is part of a 'heritage sector' sector response to the current situation that the Heritage Alliance is coordinating (of which NHSF is a member). The Alliance is part of a small group of organisations that takes part in the Heritage Council (now meeting virtually). Questions they have asked of members are:
- What do you know about probable impacts on your organisation, what mitigation do you have in place?
- Are there particular challenges/milestones you are facing in the next 6 months that will be jeopardised?
- What can Government (including DCMS) do to support and/or reassure?
- What support would be helpful from Historic England? For grant recipients in particular, what do you need from HE?
I've included a few other surveys and information on guidance/support hubs further down this letter. These are all from the 'heritage' side of our community at the moment.
If you have other sources of information that you think would be useful to share amongst Forum members, please do send them to me and I will gladly compile and share.
Caroline Peach - administrator@heritagescienceforum.org.uk
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2. Members’ Meeting on heritage science's impact
NHSF members met in Edinburgh on 6th March (which sadly may be our last in person meeting for some time) to discuss the NHSF Strategic Framework's impact strand. The meeting explored members' shared understanding of heritage science’s impact and the methodologies available to assess it. It also set out the importance of the strategic framework's impact strand by considering how heritage science will be affected if we fail to demonstrate impact, for example, less funding would lead to less work available. The meeting identified next steps including understanding what data collection is already happening, what aspects of ‘impact’ are attributable to heritage science and the creation of consistent metrics for a useful year on year comparison.
A more detailed overview of the meeting, and links to some of the presentation is available in the Member Meetings pages of the NHSF website. Read more here.
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3. British Science Week blogs
We took part in British Science Week 2020 with a series of blog posts celebrating our members' fantastic work and highlighting the wider heritage science community's achievements. Heritage scientists from all stages of their careers shared insights into their work, from researching early photographic processes to modelling the effect of wave impacts on historic lighthouses. The blogs showcase heritage science's variety and the many very talented and innovative individuals working in the field. The blogs featured were:
Although British Science Week has ended, we would like to continue to feature members' work all year round. Please send any blog ideas to coordinator@heritagescienceforum.org.uk.
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4. 2020 budget and heritage science
The 2020 budget has announced an increase in public R&D investment to £22 billion per year by 2024-25. Details of this funding will be set out at the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). At the CSR, the government will examine how R&D funding as a whole can best be distributed across the country.
The budget also included announcement of a £250 million Cultural Investment Fund for culture, heritage, local museums, and neighbourhood libraries. Of this, £90 million will be made available from April for a Cultural Development Fund that will support cultural regeneration proposals outside of London. £27 million has also been made available for critical maintenance work on the National Museums’ estates. The budget also featured a £30 billion package to respond to Coronavirus. This included:
- suspending business rates for a year for businesses with a rateable value of less than £51,000
- a £500 million hardship fund for local authorities
- and a commitment to meet statutory sick pay costs of up to 14 days for businesses with fewer than 250 employees.
Read our full 2020 summary Budget here.
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5. Heritage Alliance, COVID-19 Guidance Hub
The Heritage Alliance has compiled a COVID-19 Guidance Hub for heritage sector organisations.
Described as a 'live hub of links' it is a collation of a wide range of information of relevant to the heritage sector including: government advice, advice on homeworking and advice for small organisations and business, guidance and support on digital working, and statements from other heritage sector umbrella bodies.
It will be updated as the situation develops, and is accessible for everyone to add to. Access it here.
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6. National Lottery Heritage Fund- COVID 19 Survey
The National Lottery Heritage Fund is conducting a short survey to help determine the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on heritage organisations and the people working in them. The data collected will determine how they can best support the sector through this unprecedented period, be it policy, regulatory or financial steps. Take part in the survey here.
National Lottery Heritage Fund staff are working remotely currently but can be contacted in the normal way.
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7. Historic England guidance- COVID-19: Cleaning Historic Surfaces
In light of the coronavirus outbreak, Historic England has published new guidance on cleaning historic interiors, including the measures to take if a symptomatic person may have touched a historic item or surface. The guidance recommends materials and chemicals to be used as well as Personal Protective Equipment. It is important that you do not use household disinfectants containing chlorine on historic surfaces. Read the guidance here.
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8. Government opts out of Creative Europe
The UK Government's EU negotiation mandate confirms that the UK will not seek to participate in the next Creative Europe programme, due to start in January 2021. Projects funded under the current programme won't be affected and UK organisations can continue to apply for Creative Europe funding until the end of the current programme in December 2022. Read more here.
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9. Nesta launches Arts & Culture Impact Fund
Nesta has launched a new £20 million fund to help provide arts, culture and heritage social enterprises with capital for financial and social return. The fund will help social enterprises which find conventional repayable finance too expensive or who can't raise finance due to ‘a perception that social sector organizations are too (financially) risky’. The fund is a partnership between Arts Council England, the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Big Society Capital, Bank of America, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Nesta.
The availability of affordable, flexible loans could be immensely beneficial for many heritage science initiatives. More information about the fund is here.
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10. Scotland’s Museum and Galleries recently published strategies
Two new documents setting out the strategic plan of Scotland’s museums and galleries over the coming decade have been published.
The first is the Sottish government’s culture strategy which has three main aims: strengthening culture; transforming through culture; and empowering through culture. Read it here.
The second is Museums Galleries Scotland's third and final delivery plan as part of its 2012 museum strategy. The plan outlines four areas of specific strategic focus for 2020-2022, including Sector Resilience, Climate Emergency, Workforce Development and Digital Capacity. Read it here.
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11. Heritage Alliance Digital Fund
The Heritage Alliance has been awarded a grant by The National Lottery Heritage Fund to ‘increase the amount of free advice and support available to heritage organisations in the digital sphere’. It hopes to build the capacity of over 2,000 UK heritage organisations. It will deliver the programme supported by Media Trust, Charity Digital and Naomi Korn Associates.
You can register an interest in taking part in the programme now and take part in consultations to help design the programme. More information is here.
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12. AHRC funding opportunity: Where Next? Scoping Future Arts and Humanities Led Research
The Arts and Humanities Research Council is looking to fund approximately three in-depth interdisciplinary scoping studies which will ‘explore and develop ideas for interdisciplinary research areas which could form the basis of future research initiatives’. Each award will be worth up to £150,000.
Proposals should address a priority area of the AHRC Delivery Plan and research must be led from within the arts and humanities. More details for applicants can be found here. The deadline is 2 April.
More funding opportunities from AHRC can be found here.
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13. Heritage science virtual events
Society for Imaging Science and Technology webinar series
The Society for Imaging Science and Technology (IS&T) is hosting a webinar called ‘Access: Mind the Gap’ on 2 April at 7pm. It will be hosted by Ariela Netiv (Director of Heritage Leiden) and will discuss what ‘access’ really means in an archive setting and the questions heritage professionals need to listen to better serve the public. Register here.
Chemistry for Conservators course
The International Academic Projects is hosting an online ‘Chemistry for Conservators’ course between 1 September and 31 December 2020. It will address major conservation issues, including types of materials, the environment, cleaning, and deterioration. The course's aim is to understand that ‘if chemicals principles are to be applied in practice, it is important to understand the implications of the chemical action’. The course will comprise independent reading, online quizzes, at home experiments and assignments. Find out more here.
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14. Job opportunity! British Museum – Head of Inorganic Conservation
The British Museum is advertising for a Head of Inorganic Conservation. The successful candidate will lead, develop, manage and set standards for a specialist team of Inorganic conservators, while also contributing to the management and planning of the wider Conservation Team. They will also oversee regulatory compliance and manage budgets. Ideally, the successful candidate will be a recognised professional with a conservation qualification to at least degree level and be a recognised expert in the field of inorganic materials conservation.
The role is full-time and permanent. More information is here. Applications close midday on 30 March 2020.
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