UCL centre for sustainable heritage
RESEARCH STRATEGY
Contents Page
Context 2
Research Activity 2001-2006 4
Purpose 5
Objectives 5
Research Strategy 2007-2011 6
Challenges 10
Appendix11
Context
1. The Centre for Sustainable Heritage is part of the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies (BSGS) within the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment at UCL. The Faculty is overseen by the UCL Vice-Provost responsible for Sciences, Research, Business and Industry. With the award earlier in 2006 to BSGS of an EPSRC Platform Grant in recognition of the excellence of its research on Complex Built Environment Systems (CBES), the Centre forms the Heritage Research Group within this research cluster, allowing for better synergies with research on the built environment. But as will be described later, the Centre’s research portofolio is not defined solely by CBES research interests.
2. All staff at the Centre are expected to be research active and the role of the Director is to provide support for the development of new research ideas, to ensure that research deliverables are of international quality and that new knowledge is disseminated in academic publications and more widely to practitioners, industry and policy-makers. The Research Manager reviews research progress against personal research plans and organises monthly research meetings for the Centre’s academic staff, researchers and PhD students.
3. The Centre’s Director has overall responsibility for heritage research within BSGS and the Centre’s Research Manager has day to day research management responsibility. The Centre’s Director reports to the Bartlett’s Research Advisory Group which meets once a month. The Research Advisory Group, which consists of the Head of Department, Heads of Schools and Chairs of research groups, reviews research strategy and progress across the Bartlett.
4. The Centre’s Director promotes research by:
• providing an environment for the development of new research ideas
• developing long-term partnerships with funding bodies, practitioners, industry and policy makers
• ensuring funding opportunities are identified and disseminated, knowing that the realities of research funding require a flexible response to opportunities
• ensuring that there is an appropriate research administrative infrastructure.
5. Researchers are expected to:
• develop a personal research plan, updated annually, detailing planned research and actual research deliverables.
• produce at least one significant research publication a year which should be internationally peer-reviewed and deposited on the UCL eprints.
• actively participate in the research environment of the Bartlett.
• keep the Bartlett research administrator informed of the research plans, new and current research projects and research publications.
6. Permanent academic staff are expected to:
• Submit at least one research proposal for funding each year.
• be the principal investigator for a major research project, preferably externally. funded, employing at least one research assistant per full time member of staff is
• produce at least one significant research publication a year which should be internationally peer-reviewed and deposited on UCL eprints.
• actively participate in the research environment of the Bartlett.
• keep the Bartlett research administrator informed of the research plans, new and current research projects and research publications.
7. The Centre’s Director can recommend to UCL, via the Dean of The Bartlett, the appointment of Honorary Visiting Professors and Honorary Research Fellows to provide occasional advice and support on research and teaching. The aim is to engage eminent professionals to complement and strengthen the Centre’s activities.
Research Activity 2001-2006
8. Research is a key part of the Centre’s activities. A significant proportion of the Centre’s research has been developed from existing knowledge and expertise. We have used our knowledge of the museum environment to develop climate change impacts on cultural heritage as a key research area. We have used our expertise in modelling tools in our research on the application of computer simulation to predict future heritage conditions. We use predictive studies and data interpretation to understand better the interaction of materials and the environment, and indoor environment effects. These have resulted in new technologies and tools for adaptive decision-making in heritage science and preventive conservation management. Research has consisted of international and national collaborative projects with external partners and individual commissions from external clients. We are committed to stakeholder-led research and to disseminate research results to practitioners and policy-makers as well as the academic community through publications, workshops and conferences and through the Masters course in Sustainable Heritage which was launched in September 2004.
9. The key research strengths that we have been able to demonstrate over the last five years include interdisciplinary research, recognition of the need for science to inform policy, management and practice, collaboration with other scientists within the Bartlett and elsewhere, and engagement with end-users. We are committed to rigorous use of data from diverse sources: we gather data directly through measurement, we use indirect sources of information, we analyse data generated elsewhere evaluating its quality, we interpret data to extract as much useful information as possible, we interrogate the data by asking the right research questions and we develop research methodologies and design research experiments.
10. During the first five years, research has focused in preventive conservation not only relevant to museums and galleries, but also historic buildings, archives and libraries. A combination of strategic and tactical factors has made it possible for us to cluster our research activities under three headings: future environments, present environments and past environments, enabling us to investigate the impact of the environment on cultural heritage on a macro-, meso- and micro-scale. A summary of the 3 clusters follows:
• Future environments research produced the first study of its kind on the impact of climate change on the historic environment. Its wider impact has included requests for the report beyond the UK, and the Norwegian Institute for Air Research re-examining its future research programme to include climate change and the historic environment. It also led to an EPSRC-funded 3-year research project and to an EC 6FP 3-year research project to develop adaptation strategies for historic buildings in response to climate change.
• Present environments research started with an 18-month DETR Partners in Innovation research project in 1998 which led to a 5-year close working relationship with a commercial company and produced a publication jointly with the Museums Association. Its wider impact has included an EC 5th Framework Programme research project which produced a practical, useful and robust pollution self-assessment tool that will be publicly available on the web and 2 journal papers are in the pipeline.
• Past environments research started with a project funded by English Heritage and the National Trust with the support of Historic Royal Palaces which led to two journal papers. The experience gained in this project was recognised by the British Library which having received funding from the Mellon Foundation for research, awarded a contract to the Centre to carry out research 0n the effect of different library environments on identical books.
Purpose
11. This revised strategy is intended to continue to help us to:
• identify the heritage sector’s research needs and our capability to meet the needs
• consider how existing research partnerships might be strengthened, and new partnerships developed in order to promote new research areas
• consider how research activity might contribute to teaching excellence and how teaching activity might contribute new research ideas
• consider how research evidence can contribute to policy, how research applications can assist practitioners and how wider audiences can be engaged in preventive conservation decision-making.
Objectives
12. Our research objectives are to:
i. Contribute to identifying research gaps and contributing to meeting the heritage sector’s research needs
ii. Contribute to research excellence at UCL, through interdisciplinary research
iii. Ensure that the research is academically sound, innovative and collaborative in line with the Provost’s Designing a 10-year Strategy for UCL: the White Paper , 2004 (
iv. Produce internationally peer-reviewed research publications and to contribute fully to thenew Research Excellence Framework.
v. Disseminate research results carried out at the Centre and elsewhere through teaching
vi. Inform future research activity from the work of Masters and PhD students
vii. Strengthen existing research cooperation with UK and international partners and stakeholders
viii. Develop new research collaboration with external partners within universities, research institutions, heritage sector, industry and policy makers
ix. Provide opportunities for other UCL departments to collaborate with us
x. Respond flexibly to relevant research opportunities
13. The indicators we use to help us decide if future research will meet these objectives are:
• Interdisciplinarity: Will different disciplines be involved in the research?
• Innovation: Is the research likely to involve innovative thinking or to test new ideas?
• Relevance: Will the research improve knowledge and understanding by taking from and contributing to different subject areas and helping to develop the idea of sustainable heritage?
• Information: Will academic research results be able to inform or improve practice?
• Stakeholders: Will the research meet the needs of practitioners, end-users, industry or policy makers?
These indicators will help us develop research proposals that are true to our strategy and enable us to make rational decisions on the research in which we engage.
Research Strategy 2007-2011
14. While the Centre may undertake collaborative research in many of the areas found in Identifying Research Sector Needs in the appendix, we will focus on the complexity of environmental, social and economic relationships with cultural heritage. We will break problems down into their component parts for the purpose of definition, but solutions will reflect the vulnerability of cultural heritage in a changing world. We will use heritage science wisely to examine these issues and we will be selective in our choice of research topics and research collaborators.
15. We have therefore constructed our strategy around the answers to the following six questions:
i. Where do we want to be intellectually in 5 years’ time?
We believe that sustainable heritage has a future as a research area. We will therefore strengthen our research on historic built environments particularly the development of predictive simulation tool. We will address research questions on climate change impacts, adaptive re-use of historic buildings and ventilation strategies particularly in connection with the anticipated increase in the demand for cooling. We will study the impact of new buildings on the collection environment, taking care to define ‘new’ to include refurbishments and change-in-use. We will continue to take a holistic view of the historic environment, developing our research interest to include the synergies between the cultural and the natural environment and to be recognised for this approach. When appropriate, our projects will include research questions that address the link between physical condition, change and the value of cultural heritage, recognising that we will need to work with others to develop new skills. We will focus on strategic research that provides evidence for sound policy, decision making and heritage management. We will learn from the Masters and Ph.D dissertations of our students and ensure that our research is published in a timely manner.
ii. What do we want to be recognised for?
We want to be recognised for our high quality international research and to be the first port of call for research results. We will be identified with applied interdisciplinary research, acknowledged for taking a holistic approach to problem solving, to be known for crossing boundaries and for taking intellectual risks even if this may sometimes not guarantee research results. Our research may not necessarily be incremental in its approach because we need to have our finger on new and emerging issues and be ready to embrace new ideas and technologies.
iii. What do we need to do?
We need to raise our game and to grow both intellectually and in capacity. We have to design research projects more effectively, we need to work more smartly and existing staff need to be nurtured and developed. In the first 5 years, the Centre’s permanent academic staff doubled in number. There is a more modest though significant ambition in the next five year. We should aim to grow the Centre by one permanent member of staff who will focus specifically on historic futures research aiming to produce data of relevance for both policy and scientific research. The Centre has already trademarked Historic Futures™ with the Patent Office to this end.
iv. How do we become more successful in our research?
A number of things need to be done. We need to be involved in defining the wider research agenda to encourage our ideas on interdisciplinary research to be adopted. We need to participate in cutting edge research and where appropriate in research networks. We must engage in successful collaborations, associating ourselves with the best researchers in the field, particularly those who complement our own knowledge. We recognise that these criteria can be difficult to reconcile. We may need to be selective while accepting wholeheartedly the importance of collaboration with others who have common research interests, if success is to be sustained. We need to look ahead, recognising that we must attract doctoral students to the Centre as a source of good quality research ideas. We need to identify other opportunities for research collaboration within UCL (see paragraph 16 below) as well as beyond it.
v. Which direction should we be taking in our research?
Environmental sustainability will remain our primary area of research interest. Socio-economic research may be tackled only in collaboration with others with the knowledge and skills that complement our own. While our research focus will remain broadly scientific in order to build on our strengths, we cannot ignore socio-economic research if we wish to continue to be recognised for our interdisciplinary research. This means that there will also be areas in the heritage science field that fall outside our remit such as research on the characterisation of historic and archaeological materials. We will continue to refine our research strategy over the next five years in order to sharpen its focus without reducing our room to manoeuvre.
Therefore we will concentrate our research effort over the next five years in the following areas:
• Adaptive Re-use of Historic Buildings:
- Climate change impacts
- Building simulation modelling of outdoor-indoor interactions
- Impact of compliance with the European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and Part L of the Building Regulations (UK)
• Preventive conservation of collections, buildings and sites:
- Risk perception and risk management
- Predicting the effects of visitation on wear and tear of historic interiors
• Decision-Making for Sustainable Use of Heritage:
- Scientific and technological evidence to define heritage value
- Maintenance and life cycle costs
- Sustainable communities and the historic environment
• Preservation and Use of Archives and Libraries:
- Natural ageing of library and archive materials
- Measurement of impact/deterioration/damage under different environmental conditions
The cross-cutting themes that are likely to emerge are:
• Environment-materials interface: air quality and pollution assessment, complex materials, behaviour and maintenance
• Monitoring, modelling and validation
• Standards and indicators
• Preservation and impact of use: policy, governance and decision-making
vi. What “skills set” do we need to develop to achieve our goals?
We have identified different skill sets that will need reviewing and developing. The Centre requires all the generic scientific skills that come with fully trained scientists from whatever discipline. These include critical thinking, methodical experimentation, rigorous analysis and interpretation of data. The research areas that we will be concentrating on during the next five years have been identified immediately above under v. and are Adaptive re-use of historic buildings; Preventive conservation of collections; buildings and sites; Decision-making for sustainable use of heritage and Preservation and use of archives and libraries. Each of these areas will require specific scientific skills that may include: building physics, that is the understanding of buildings and their interactions with their environment; mathematical analysis including risk or probability, statistical analysis, computer modelling of the internal and external environment of buildings and the contents, chemistry to understand the deterioration effects of environmental processes and the development of participation, observation and interviewing skills. Project specific skills include research proposal writing and project management. Generic skills include paper (publication) writing, time management, finance, management & marketing, communication skills, and diplomacy and negotiations. The Centre aims to develop the interdisciplinary skills necessary to become world leaders in sustainable heritage. Training to develop the generic and project specific skills are available within UCL. The availability at UCL of specific scientific skills training will be investigated first.
16. The Centre will continue to strengthen existing research partnerships and to develop new links including with other UCL research groups namely:
• Archaeology (on in situ protection of archaeological remains and sites)
• Computer Science (on intelligent media )
• Facilities Management (on preventive maintenance)
• Geography (on human geography and cultural landscapes)
• Housing (on historic domestic dwellings)
• Planning (on the impact of heritage conservation on regeneration and quality of life)
• Space (on modelling the use of space)
• Transport (on wear and tear)
• Geomatics (on micro changes in objects)
• Material culture (on instrumental techniques to analyse material remains)
Challenges
17. The Centre faces a number of intellectual challenges in ensuring that its research outputs are relevant and disseminated widely, and not just through research papers that meet the RAE requirements. The challenges are: