UCL and the National Trust: Co-creating new ways of working for the heritage sector

UCL’s partnership with Europe’s biggest conservation charity is enabling the heritage sector to benefit from transformative, co-created research and education.

A conservation volunteer cleaning a tile with a cotton swab

28 September 2023

With more than five million members, the National Trust is one of Europe’s largest heritage organisations.

The Trust became an Independent Research Organisation in 2019, a status awarded by UK Research and Innovation to organisations with the in-house capacity to carry out research that materially enhances the UK research base.

But now thanks to their strategic partnership with UCL, embedding collaborative heritage science research across and beyond the Trust’s activities is being taken to a broader and deeper level.

UCL is working specifically on the ‘Looking after what we’ve got’ strand of the Trust’s strategic framework, opening up significant new opportunities for collaborative research. The new ideas that come out of these projects are set to help shape the future of the heritage sector both in the UK and globally.

The Trust has also played a key role in the development of a new Heritage, Sustainability and Society BA degree programme at UCL East. Providing unique insight into the sector’s evolving needs is helping to ensure UCL’s heritage teaching continues to lead the way.

More projects are now underway or planned. Later this year, we’ll be inviting National Trust specialists into UCL Labs, to apply emerging methodologies to critical heritage questions.

A knowledge exchange project is underway to explore financial incentives that would encourage more repairs for listed heritage assets.

Researchers from both organisations are also working to jointly develop new short courses for archaeology.

The partnership has been supported by the Business and Innovation Partnerships and Knowledge Exchange Funding teams in UCL Innovation & Enterprise.

Watch a video about the partnership between UCL and the National Trust

In this video UCL and National Trust staff members explain the benefits of working in partnership and how UCL Innovation & Enterprise supported their projects.