ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL

More than £6.5 million has been awarded to 16 projects under the Science and Heritage Programme. Funded jointly by the AHRC and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, these awards seek to ensure that knowledge and innovation in cultural-heritage research is strengthened, while also helping early career researchers to emerge as leaders in the field.

LARGE RESEARCH GRANTS (SCIENCE AND HERITAGE) SCHEME

Award winner: D. D'Ayala

Institution: University of Bath

Value: £531,289

Studentship: £146,887

Parnassus - ensuring integrity, preserving significance: value-based flood resilience for protection of cultural heritage from climate-change impact

Award winner: A. Cohn

Institution: University of Leeds

Value: £534,833

Studentship: £146,887

The detection of archaeological residues using remote-sensing techniques (DART)

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Award winner: H. Liang

Institution: Nottingham Trent University

Value: £661,419

The next generation of optical coherence tomography (OCT) for art conservation - in situ non-invasive imaging of subsurface microstructure of objects

Award winner: P.G. Lindley

Institution: University of Leicester

Value: £497,907

Studentship: £152,397

Representing re-formation: reconstructing Renaissance monuments

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Award winner: M. Strlic

Institution: University College London

Value: £610,710

"Collections demography": on dynamic evolution of populations of objects

Award winner: D.E. Watkinson

Institution: Cardiff University

Value: £364,470

Studentship: £48,747

Evidence-based condition-monitoring strategy for preservation of heritage iron

SCIENCE AND HERITAGE POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS SCHEME

Award winner: T. Agbota

Institution: University College London

Value: £241,433

Accessible heritage - remote transcontinental heritage-support system

Award winner: L. Gonzalez

Institution: The National Archives

Value: £234,438

From structural change to perceived damage: appropriate environmental conditions for parchment

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Award winner: G.K.C. Jones

Institution: University of Warwick

Value: £254,162

Advancing and communicating synchrotron techniques for heritage-metals conservation

Award winner: N. Luxford

Institution: University College London

Value: £235,531

Change or damage? Effect of climate on decorative furniture surfaces in historic properties

Award winner: S. O'Connor

Institution: University of Bradford

Value: £244,324

Cultural objects worked in skeletal hard tissues

Award winner: S. Pandey

Institution: Courtauld Institute of Art

Value: £240,135

Salts and synthetic coatings on wall paintings: characterising their transformation, interaction and contribution to deterioration

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Award winner: S. Tanimoto

Institution: Imperial College London

Value: £269,978

Advancing heritage science with spectroscopic imaging

Award winner: G.C. Walker

Institution: University of Reading

Value: £281,055

Seeing through walls: discovering Europe's hidden mural paintings

Award winner: E.A. Willneff

Institution: University of Manchester

Value: £4,584

Interpreting the surface: the application of surface science to artists' acrylic emulsion paint films

IN DETAIL

Award winner: Lorraine Gibson

Institution: University of Strathclyde

Value: £537,123

Studentship: £97,781

Heritage smells!

Funding for this project will go towards the development of olfactory tools for use in heritage science. Equipment will be designed to "sniff" the air, allowing researchers to answer questions regarding the environmental and conservational history of an area, and study the composition, condition or stability of underlying organic materials.

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Dr Gibson will work with Catherine Higgitt from the British Museum, Barry Knight from the British Library and Matija Strlic from University College London to extend the study of volatile components in the environment to determine if the "smell" can be used to establish the composition of cultural-heritage objects. It is expected that the research will aid collections custodians and inform decisions about the acquisition, storage, conservation, display and preservation of items.