June 2021: Reflections on the Centenary of the First World War: Learning and Legacies for the Future
How did community and academic researchers come together to work on public heritage and public history projects over the course of the First World War centenary? This Report
examines this wider question through a focus on the five university-based First World
War Engagement Centres that were funded by the Arts and Humanities Research
Council (AHRC) to develop partnerships with community researchers over the course of
the ‘long centenary’ (2014-2019).
This Report is the
first major outcome of this research project and was co-authored by Professor Lucy Noakes University of Essex, Dr Emma Hanna, University of Kent, Professor Lorna Hughes, University of Glasgow, Professor Catriona Pennell, University of Exeter and Dr James Wallis, University of Essex and Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
The First World War centenary saw large-scale interest and participation among the
wider public. The creation and structure of the First World War Engagement Centres,
established at the start of 2014, is outlined in Section One. The Engagement Centres
funded a range of co-produced projects that brought community and academic
researchers together. These projects are discussed in more detail in Section Two, while
the range of other activities undertaken by the Engagement Centres is discussed in
Section Four. Many First World War heritage projects were funded by the Heritage
Lottery Fund (now National Lottery Heritage Fund), and a number of these worked
with the First World War Engagement Centres. A detailed study of some of these
partnerships can be found in Section Three of this report.
Many of the projects that we examine produced websites and other digital legacies (for
example, photos, digitized objects and documents, blog posts, recordings) that showcased
their research. These outputs, and the vexed question of their preservation, are discussed
in Section Five of this Report.