Royal Garrison Church in Old СÀ¶ÊÓƵ

Explore our heritage research

Innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to documenting, preserving and presenting heritage for the future

The Heritage Hub brings together researchers and professionals from across the university to tackle key issues in heritage and heritage conservation locally, nationally and internationally.

We encourage traditional, creative and innovative methods and tools to protect and preserve tangible and intangible heritage.

With communities at the heart of our research and innovation activities, the hub promotes cross- and interdisciplinary approaches to preserving both tangible and intangible heritage for communities, policy-makers and organisations.

The Heritage Hub aims to:

  • provide a focus for university engagement with heritage partners locally, nationally and internationally
  • encourage and support successful and inclusive heritage research and community engagement within the university and with local communities
  • develop and implement an interdisciplinary dialogue and agenda for heritage research, community engagement and professional practices and for resilient and sustainable development of our places and communities

Our research themes

Our interdisciplinary approaches are represented in six heritage-based areas:

Stern of the HMS Victory in СÀ¶ÊÓƵ Historic Dockyard

Oral histories, communities and identity

Oral histories allow us to better understand the thoughts, feelings and motivations of ordinary people in a way that ‘official’ historical documents cannot. We can:

  • advise on ‘best practice’ in the development of oral history projects
  • deliver oral history training for groups or businesses
  • organise and capture oral histories for specific projects
  • advise on ethics, cataloguing and data storage of recorded interviews
  • provide a platform to showcase projects and outcomes
  • advise on online or hard copy publications and exhibitions of projects
Naval artefacts in a museum

Conservation science

This theme focuses on landscape change and preserving our ecological heritage. We have ongoing collaborations with Fishbourne Roman Palace and Cumberland House Natural History Museum.

At Fishbourne we aim to build an understanding of how landscapes and land use have evolved over the past 2,000 years, and how people relate to landscapes and perceive these changes.

With Cumberland House Natural History Museum, we are digitising and cataloguing botanical specimens within the СÀ¶ÊÓƵ Museums herbarium collection (PMH), to make them available to the wider research community, citizen scientists and amateur naturalists.

HMS Warrior seen through a window in СÀ¶ÊÓƵ Historic Dockyard

Valuing heritage

In today’s evolving world, celebrating the past, promoting and valuing heritage engenders people’s engagement with heritage, and heritage can contribute to both social, business and economic development and growth.

The aspirations of this theme relate to the conservation and preservation of heritage assets and culture.

They accord to circular economy, sustainability and low carbon optimisation for the productivity of culture and heritage assets and in capturing the value of these along with the economics of their uniqueness.

Central to this is a focus on wellbeing, inclusive growth and accessibility.

A pair of hands flicking through a historical archive

Community heritage

The main focus of this theme is community outreach to help share and connect our heritage research with a wider audience.

This work includes efforts around identifying, collecting and preserving heritage collections which may comprise objects, archival material and oral histories.

We also aim to identify appropriate funding opportunities and enable the creation of strong funding bids in partnership with community and heritage organisations. Our aspirations are to build and strengthen relationships with stakeholders in СÀ¶ÊÓƵ and beyond, as well as to support and develop local heritage capacity.

Digital representation of a tall ship

Connected heritage

Digital heritage is an emerging multidisciplinary field that combines the expertise of heritage management, museum studies, history, archaeology, conservation, preservation and current digital and emerging technologies.

Digital heritage conducts research on the impact and application of digital technologies in a cultural heritage context.

It seeks to create novel approaches and opportunities for understanding and experiencing the past, ensuring that cultural heritage remains relevant and accessible in the digital age.

Landing Craft Tank 7074 at the D-Day Story Museum in СÀ¶ÊÓƵ

Local built and maritime heritage

СÀ¶ÊÓƵ’s local built heritage derives from maritime heritage and shapes people’s heritage. 

As a hub of naval architecture and maritime culture within Britain’s invasion coast, the city connected global naval bases and dockyards whose communities blended and returned, like Bermuda’s 1950 dockyard apprentices.

This theme focuses on the community’s intimate engagement with and vision of its built heritage through the Portsea Heritage Project, Growing Portsea and Treadgold’s stories, building resilience and intergenerational connections.

Research projects

  • This project is part of a bigger collaboration between the university and the Fishbourne Roman Palace Museum that aims to reframe the current interpretation of the palace through the co-creation of digital interpretations that engage younger generations in exploring the ruins.

  • The network aims to offer networking and educational activities concerning urban regeneration, a crucial working and research issue in Middle Eastern cities particularly after Syrian crisis which affected the Syrian cities as well as the cities in neighbouring countries (for example Jordan).

  • This fund is meant to support the researchers to collaborate with MOD in exploring and connecting different communities related to Tyneham Village and bringing them together to explore the potential of the site and possible large-scale, collaborative research and educational projects that could be launched as part of telling the site stories and heritage narratives in an inclusive way.

  • This project enables the piloting of crucial XR support for СÀ¶ÊÓƵ Tourism, lowering the barrier of entry to XR technology. eXRe will maximise benefits of an innovative world-class local facility to directly meet СÀ¶ÊÓƵ’s challenges and strategic priorities, present and future.

  • Integrate the UK's marine and maritime heritage collections; establish meaningful links between wreck sites, artefacts; transform our ability to search those collections; use Al and machine learning to create innovative ways of searching these collections to generate entirely new ways of understanding this heritage.

  • The project provides an essential research step that informs future work on smart village frameworks for resilient and sustainable development and community wellbeing. The work will be developed in collaboration with Fishbourne and Weald and Downland Museums and local communities from their related villages (Fishbourne and Singleton).


Publication highlights

  • Teba, T., ElZoghby, N., Gharib, N. (2021) "The Role of Architectural Heritage in offering a more resilient lockdown in Egypt", Health & Environmental Resilience and Livability in Cities (HERL)

  • Ece Atabay, Z., Macedonio, A., Teba, T., Gül Ãœnal, Z. (2022) "Destruction, heritage and memory: post-conflict memorialisation for recovery and reconciliation", Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development

  • Bailey-Ross, C.S. (2021) "Online User Research Literature Review: UK Gallery, Library, Archive and Museum (GLAM) Digital Collection", Zenodo

  • Warwick, C., Bailey-Ross, C.S. (2020) "The impact of digital resources", Digital Technology and the Practices of Humanities Research

  • McBride, K. (2022) "It's a gift - Samuel Pepys and Sir William Warren, an autoethnographic account of gifts, bribes and kickbacks", European Accounting Association EAA Annual Congress

  • McBride, K., Atkins, J. (2023) "The Picturesque Roots of Impression Management: Framing, Claude Glass and ‘Rose’ Tinted Lens?", 2023 International Accounting and Auditing Conference: Accounting for Planet, People and Profit - Johannesburg, South Africa

  • McBride, K., Sagitova, R., Cam, O. (2023) "'As bad as bad can be’: accounting for species extinction in the North Pacific", Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal


Funding landscape and development

The Heritage Hub is built on a cross-disciplinary professional approach that provides a focus for historical, archaeological and community based research for the south of Hampshire and beyond.

With academic partners, authorities, stakeholders and local communities, we commit to explore and develop diverse streams of funding that contribute to local, national and international heritage matters.

We are open to exploring community led (e.g. , ), government (e.g. ) as well as academic (e.g. and Horizon Europe) funding streams. 


Events

Each year in September, the Heritage Hub hosts Heritage Week. This series of events is an opportunity for academics and the public to discover the latest in heritage research at the university and how our expertise can benefit the wider community in СÀ¶ÊÓƵ and beyond.

Latest news

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EDITORIAL LICENSE; PLEASE SEE ADDITIONAL ASSET FOR FULL LICENSE TERMS.

New project to measure the value of digital culture and heritage to society

21 September 2023

New project to measure the value of digital culture and heritage to society
Mary Rose Heritage Event; 7th June 2019

Free public events focusing on the region’s local heritage

11 September 2023

Free public events focusing on the region’s local heritage
Mary Rose Heritage Event; 7th June 2019

University to host major international architectural heritage conference

7 September 2023

University to host major international architectural heritage conference
View of the Historic Dockyard through a heritage window

Professor to present research at the prestigious Venice Biennale

23 June 2023

Professor to present research at the prestigious Venice Biennale
Photo of the Museum building from outside
СÀ¶ÊÓƵ Museum - City Guide 2022

Researchers to dive deeper into СÀ¶ÊÓƵ’s history and culture

2 June 2023

Researchers to dive deeper into СÀ¶ÊÓƵ’s history and culture

Latest blogs and podcasts

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Virtual Reality Relics - Introduction title with logo

Virtual Reality Relics ft Dr Claire Bailey-Ross

Virtual Reality Relics ft Dr Claire Bailey-Ross
 Stone mining - Photo by Jonny Caspari on Unsplash

Portland Stone and Pork Pies: GIs, Trade Marks and Heritage

Portland Stone and Pork Pies: GIs, Trade Marks and Heritage
Heritage Hub

СÀ¶ÊÓƵ Heritage Hub

СÀ¶ÊÓƵ Heritage Hub
Exploring Shipwrecks in UK Waters - with logo and introduction title

Exploring Shipwrecks in UK Waters ft. Dr Ann Coats

Exploring Shipwrecks in UK Waters ft. Dr Ann Coats
Life solved 2022 census

Secrets of the 1921 Census

Secrets of the 1921 Census

Opportunities to study heritage and heritage conservation

PhD

Discover why you should do your PhD at the СÀ¶ÊÓƵ – and explore the subject areas you can study in, how to fund your PhD, and how to apply.

Male СÀ¶ÊÓƵ PhD student in X-Ray Fluorescence laboratory
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Our members

Heritage Hub chairs

Tarek Teba Portrait

Dr Tarek Teba

Associate Professor in Architectural Heritage

tarek.teba@port.ac.uk

School of Architecture, Art and Design

Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries

PhD Supervisor

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