Research across UCL Culture

UCL Culture supports collections-based research, and facilitate funded projects meeting UCL's Grand Challenges and the impact agenda.  With access to the three public museums in UCL Culture, The Grant Museum of Zoology, The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archeology and the Art Museum as well as the wide range of collections across UCL, including the Pathology Museum at the Royal Free, the Galton Collection, the Science collection and Jeremy Bentham.  In addition there's a range of other collections at UCL including Archeology, Ethnography and Geology that have links to our research.

We’ve access to a plethora of material and environments and fascinating spaces that the public are interested in.  We have resources and support in place to help staff and students with their research and to make that research impactful.  We are always looking for new types of collaboration and partnerships that engender more innovative and more impactful research at UCL.

Current research projects:

Museums on Prescription
Museums on Prescription is a three -year research project (2014-17) funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council investigating the value of heritage encounters in social prescribing.

Museums Wellbeing Measures
Over the past few years we have been researching the role of museums in improving health and wellbeing with a special focus on the benefits of touch and object handling for people in hospitals and healthcare settings.

Artefacts of Excavation
This is a three-year, AHRC-funded collaborative project led by Dr Alice Stevenson at UCL, and Professor John Baines at the University of Oxford.
From the 1880s to the 1980s British excavations at sites across Egypt resulted in the discovery of tens of thousands of objects. A large proportion were exported from Egypt and distributed to an estimated 200 museums around the world before they were fully documented or published.  'Artefacts of Excavation' is an ambitious project that will create an online resource for the relocation and re-contextualization of these objects, and will explore the role of these distributions in the development of archaeology and museology

Spotlight on the Slade
UCL Art Museum has received a Curatorial Research Grant from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art to help support a research curator for three years to catalogue the Slade Collections, an important historic resource comprised of over 3,000 paintings, drawings and prints. The primary aim of the project is to unlock the considerable potential of the collection by providing high-quality visual and textual information about this unique archive via an improved online catalogue. 

Not So Grim Up North
Not So Grim Up North brings together three organisations, all recognised by the Royal Society for Public Health for their leading practice and research in the field of health, culture and wellbeing; the Whitworth in Manchester (on behalf of Manchester Museums and Galleries Partnership), Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (TWAM) and researchers at University College London (UCL).  Read more here.

National Alliance for Museums, Health and Wellbeing
The National Alliance for Museums, Health & Wellbeing is a place where information about museums and health can be shared; to improve existing practice, help build resilience and provide resources and support for those individuals and organisations working in this area of activity.

What is impact?

Impact is the demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy.
Research grant applicants are encouraged to explore, from the outset, who could potentially benefit from their work in the longer term, and to consider what could be done to increase the chances of their research reaching those beneficiaries.

We can offer help and assistance to deliver impact. We can help you to:
- develop an exhibition to showcase your research, creating a forum for the public to engage with your research
- organise events and advise on the development of workshops geared towards your preferred target audiences, stakeholders and partners
- host events, workshops and receptions in our museum spaces and the Bloomsbury Theatre

For detailed museum impact case studies search the database on the dedicated UCL Research Impact website.