Scoping a UK Heritage Science Infrastructure. Priorities, Risks and Values. A report to the Arts and Humanities Research Council

In 2021, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) awarded funding for five infrastructure policy and engagement fellowships, as part of its ongoing process of portfolio scoping and prioritisation. Two Fellowships were awarded to undertake research and engagement in the creative industries, and three Fellows were funded by AHRC to undertake research and engagement in heritage science and conservation research.

A report by the three Fellows in heritage science and conservation research is now available.

The Fellows’ report refers throughout to a bid by AHRC to the UKRI Infrastructure Fund. The AHRC bid is to establish a networked, distributed infrastructure for UK heritage science, RICHeS. Securing public investment on the scale envisaged for RICHeS must go through a rigorous process to comply with rules for managing public money. At the time the Fellows’ report was written (2021) and in mid-2022, the AHRC bid was still undergoing development and assessment. The Fellows’ report should therefore be viewed as supporting wider conversations around heritage science and should not be read as defining the operational or funding decisions for RICHeS, which remain a matter for AHRC.