Our partners
The Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories works in partnership with other Higher Education institutions and with a wide range of social, cultural and political organisations outside of academia, as an intrinsic element in our research and enterprise activities within our various Research Areas (where full details can be found). Our partnerships develop out of local, national and international networks and promote collaborative knowledge production, social engagement and the public impact of our research. The activities we undertake with our partners include academic conferences and other events, funding bids, training sessions and workshops with community groups, talks and exhibitions. If your organisation is interested in working with CMNH, please contact us with your ideas at: memorynarrativehistories@brighton.ac.uk
Higher Education research partnerships and networks from the Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories
Informal academic collaboration with colleagues at other universities is furthered through programming and invitations to speak at our events and by the extensive range of lectures, seminar papers and other public talks by centre members at institutions in the UK and worldwide, which often lead to publication, co-writing and co-editing, joint funding bids, and co-organising of further events. CMNH also networks and partners more formally with a range of other Higher Education institutions, research centres and research groups. Among these are:
The European Observatory on Memory
CMNH on behalf of the University is a formal Academic Partner of this European Research Network, supported by the European Commission and based within the University of Barcelona’s Solidarity Foundation. The European Observatory on Memories (EUROM) works to promote interdisciplinary research and academic activities related to the construction of public memory in Europe, to contribute to the analysis and management of the politics of memory, and to influence the right of citizens to use and interpret the memorial heritage. It is a research project but it also deals with the management and dissemination of memorial policies related to conflicts of the twentieth century and other historic periods that have a public influence in the twenty-first century. The EUROM network is supported for five years by EACEA (the Education, Audio-visual and Culture Executive Agency of the European Commission) through the Europe for Citizens Program. Other members include: the International Committee of Memorial Museums for Remembrance (IC MEMO); the Museum of Free Derry; the Maison d’Izieu Association; the Finnish-Russian Citizens’ Forum; the National Institute for the History of the Liberation Movement in Italy; the Topography of Terror Documentation Center; the Mauthausen Memorial; the Museum of Occupations; the Wewelsburg 1933-1945 Memorial Museum, and the Centre for Memory and Testimony Studies of Wilfrid Laurier University (Canada).
In 2015 Dawson, Noakes and Michail, together with Post Graduate Researchers Alfaro and Sadikovic were invited to Barcelona to present on the work at CMNH and to participate in a research workshop with other network members. IN 2017 CMNH partnered with EUROM in organising a symposium at the Imperial war museum, London, on The Bombings of Barcelona and London: Memories of a Shared History.
The Uses of the Past Research Programme in the Faculty of Arts, Aarhus University, Denmark.
CRMNH and the Uses of the Past Research Programme have established a research partnership to develop our complementary interests and expertise in an area broadly defined as the Politics of the Past. These currently include: history, memory and heritage, globalisation and identity, the Northern Ireland Conflict and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. In 2017 Professor Dawson visited Aarhus to participate in a research workshop on Northern Ireland. In 2018 we are hosting a joint workshop in Brighton, to be followed up by a second workshop in Aaurhus, to explore our common interests in detail and lay the basis for a potential Erasmus bid to fund publication, networking and exchange activities for staff and students attached to both institutions.
The Teaching and Learning War research network
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Networking Scheme, the Teaching and Learning War research network brings together EU and international researchers and stakeholders, from a range of academic disciplines and professional backgrounds, to explore young people’s engagement with and receptivity to the cultural memory messages of the two world wars from an international comparative perspective. Led by Dr Catriona Pennell (History, University of Exeter) and Dr Mark Sheehan (Education, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) the network is based on the premise that while study of memory and war remembrance has intensified in recent years, the way young people engage with the cultural messages about these seminal historical events is largely unexplored. Interrogating the practices of teaching and learning about war remembrance has the potential to illuminate how memories of war are shaped.
Centre for Life Histories and Life Writing Research, University of Sussex.
CMNH and the Centre for Life Histories and Life Writing Research work together to run an Annual Post Graduate Conference each June. Attended by post graduate and early career researchers from around the globe, past conferences have included:
2008-09: Memories Narratives and Histories
2009–10: Public Lives, Private Lives; New Research Across the Disciplines
2010-11: The Emotions in History, Memory and Storytelling
2011-12: Working with Narrative, Memory and Life History: A Postgraduate Afternoon for Sharing Projects, Skills and Job Experiences
2013-14: Researching Uniqueness: How life history research entails singular questions and special outcomes.
2014-15: Internationalism of Life History Research
2015-16: Subversive Histories for Public Cultures. The politics of life history research
2016-17: Life History and Life Writing: Critical and Creative Approaches
CMNH also has links with the following international and national research networks and research centres:
The Centre for Black Atlantic Research (University of Central Lancashire, UK)
The Social History Society (University of Lancaster, UK)
Oral History in Higher Education Network (University of Warwick, UK)
The Historical Dialogues, Justice and Memory Network (Columbia University, USA)
British Association of Irish Studies Network
European Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies (University of Leuven, Netherlands)
Centre for Irish Studies (Université Rennes 2, France)
The Historical Trauma and Transformation Programme (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa)
Social engagement and centre partnerships outside HE
Social engagement is a key aspect of CMNH’s work, and includes sustained relationships with organisations as diverse as the Imperial War Museum and Falls Community Council. We identify and develop our research activities in relation to the social needs and interests of a wide range of stakeholders and practitioners, including local, community and public historians; archivists, curators and heritage-sector professionals; artists, writers, dramatists and other cultural practitioners and creators; teachers and other educationalists; social and political activists; peace-building, justice and environmental campaigners; and members of particular communities. Our modes of social engagement are evidenced both in the varied constituencies that take part in our events, as speakers, delegates, and audiences; and in the partnerships and collaborative relationships with organisations and groups outside the academy that we enter into in organising these events, in supporting their work through training sessions and workshops, in making applications for funding, and in designing our research projects in ways that engage with the current concerns of our partners.
CMNH has a record of achievement through collaboration with community partners in successful applications to the Heritage Lottery Fund and other funders of community history. We have also been successful in winning AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Awards and AHRC/TECHNE Doctoral Partnership Awards to fund interdisciplinary doctoral studentship projects which are developed as a collaboration between a university and an organisation outside higher education. See below for details of current projects. We welcome proposals for future collaboration from eligible organisations which range from local community centres to national institutions.
Our projects include:
CMNH has partnered with Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, Royal Pavilion & Museums, The Keep, Willis Newson arts consultants, and Onward Arts to win a three-year Heritage Lottery Fund grant, 2017-20. The project is designed to preserve and represent the history of the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, as the old buildings are demolished, through collected objects and stories. These will form the core of a number of presentations and displays for staff, patients and visitors to the hospital.
Gateways to the First World War
CMNH is a member of the AHRC Gateways to the First World War Public Engagement Centre (2014-19), that brings together a consortium of universities led by the University of Kent to work with community groups and heritage organisations on events and projects concerned with the centenary of the First World War. ). As such it has hosted a range of conferences, symposia, community groups, film screenings and research training sessions. Dr Sam Carroll is Community Heritage Researcher at Gateways.
CMNH in collaboration with Falls Community Council, West Belfast, has won a TECHNE/AHRC Doctoral Partnership Award providing full funding for a PhD studentship to work in and on the Dúchas Oral History Archive at FCC. The award is currently being set up, to start October 2018. For further details of the project and the collaboration, see here.
The IWM and Public Memory of the Second World War
CMNH won a three-year AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Partnership award for a PhD studentship at the Imperial War Museum, commencing May 2016. The project will examine the politics of Second World War display and audience engagement and interpretation at IWM. It will deliver a critical analysis of the IWM’s programme of Second World War exhibitions, events and related public activities and explore its relation to the changing landscapes of remembrance, commemoration and memory of the war, in the context of wider cultural and political shifts in Britain from 1945 to the present.
Performing Emotional Histories: Centenary Commemorations of the First World War
CMNH won this TECHNE/AHRC National Productivity Investment Fund doctoral studentship, awarded in 2017, in collaboration with the Dover Arts Development.
CMNH has worked in partnership with the following organisations:
Brighton and Hove Black History
Brighton and Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Brighton and Sussex University Hospital NHS Trust
Dúchas Oral History Archive, Falls Community Council, West Belfast
European Observatory on Memories
Gateways to the First World War Engagement Centre, Kent
Healing Through Remembering, Northern Ireland
Human Rights Media Centre, Cape Town
Hydrocracker Theatre Company, Brighton and Hove
inroads productions, East Sussex
Kabosh Theatre Company, Belfast
National Maritime Museum, London
National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire
Prisons Memory Archive, Belfast
Royal Marines Museum, Southsea
Royal United Services Institute, London
Rwandan Youth Information Community Organisation (rYico)
Strike a Light Arts and Heritage Organisation
Tim Parry Jonathan Ball Foundation for Peace
West Tyrone Voice, Northern Ireland
Wildspark Theatre Company, Brighton and Hove
Willis Newson arts and health consultancy
