The HistBEKE project will very soon have a set of recommendations to send to Historic England for their agreement, following which they will be put into action.
We are keen to ensure that the heritage sector, including those in academia, is fully on board with these and that everyone has been able to have an input.
We would like to invite you, therefore, to a seminar day on Friday 29th June in London, either just to attend or to present a short paper. This seminar day is an opportunity to hear more about the HistBEKE project and how the framework will work, including recommendations for the knowledge exchange and research agenda. The future of the project will also be discussed, as well as how it can be used and further developed by everyone in the sector.
Topics for presentations may include, for example:
- How you might make use of HistBEKE
- Whether or not your own research agenda/priorities aligns with HistBEKE
- Knowledge gaps and research themes that we might have missed
- Knowledge gaps and themes that you might be able to fill (perhaps they could be used as a topic list for MA dissertations?)
- Thoughts on the recommendations and any further suggestions
- Guidance / publications / projects that might be added to the knowledge exchange
- Areas for future collaboration
The key outcome from the workshops was that that HistBEKE should have two key elements:
- A Knowledge Exchange – a ‘one-stop-shop’ website that anyone can access for information on building types, conservation techniques, craft skills, materials etc. This will effectively be a Google-style search engine which will provide links/signposts to resources, many of which may well be on your website. This should be a wiki-style page that will be open access so that anyone can update it.
- A research agenda and strategy to fill any knowledge gaps and thus add to the knowledge exchange above. This should be ‘managed’ by a network/forum/stakeholder group rather than an open access wiki.
The other recommendations can all be found in the online survey that we are currently running to see how strongly everyone agrees them: https://survey.liv.ac.uk/Histbeke2018Survey.
The recommendations will not be finalised until after the seminar day, however, and all comments will be taken into account.
Please send your expression of interest to Stella Jackson by 31st May and let us know if you’d be able to attend on the 29th June, and if you would like to present a short (max 20 minutes) paper.
Featured image by SPAB (via University of Liverpool)