Annual Report and Review 2015
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Annual Report and Review 2015 Beyond the digital Big data: Interdisciplinary Undesirable and humanities: exploring open research: unreturnable: integrating digital data and web bringing humanities stimulating debate approaches into the archives with new and life sciences on excluded asylum- research lifecycle methodologies together seekers I Front cover: Senate House with © Nik Merkulov/Shutterstock overlay. Above: SAS graduands at the 2014 graduation ceremony held at Senate House. II Contents School of Advanced Study .............................................................. 2 The School of Advanced Study Institutes ........................................ 6 News review ................................................................................... 8 People ........................................................................................... 12 Digital humanities at SAS: DH@SAS ............................................ 16 Moving beyond digital humanities ................................................ 18 Exile archives speak ....................................................................... 20 IALS Digital law projects ............................................................... 22 British History Online ................................................................... 24 Experimental narratives ................................................................... 25 Philosophers and psychologists exploring our senses digitally ......... 26 A year of big data ........................................................................... 28 New digital resource for Commonwealth scholars ......................... 30 Being Human festival back for a second year ................................... 31 Cotton to Gold engages new audiences, spurs partnership .............. 33 Cognitive science meets ancient religion ........................................ 36 New centre to serve as national hub for postcolonial research ........ 37 Report outlines challenges, future of Latin American and Caribbean research ........................................................................ 38 Interdisciplinarity and fellows at The Warburg Institute ................ 39 New MA offers distance learning in refugee protection, forced migration studies ............................................................................ 40 Art history at The Warburg Institute ............................................. 41 PORT: online research training ..................................................... 43 Thinking through fieldwork in Latin America ............................... 44 Undesirable and unreturnable? ...................................................... 45 IALS research provides insight into UN’s focus on global sustainability ................................................................................. 46 Selection of staff publications, 2014–15 ........................................ 47 Selection of publications produced in 2014–15 ............................. 48 Financial summary ......................................................................... 50 Statistics 2014–15 .......................................................................... 51 Last word ...................................................................................... 52 1 The School of Advanced Study: 20 years of exploring innovative ways to support humanities research The School of Advanced Study (SAS) has a unique mission in UK higher education: to champion the cause of humanities research in the UK, ensuring that its social, cultural and economic benefits are publicly recognised to provide world-class support to individuals, networks and organisations conducting humanities research, nationally and internationally to identify and lead debates that stimulate new agendas and innovative thinking to show creativity in developing research services, resources and research training. The School celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2015. On 15 March 1995, SAS was officially opened by Sir Anthony Kenny as a federation of the University of London’s research institutes. In the two decades since then, the School has established itself as the UK’s national humanities hub, publicly funded to support and promote research in the humanities nationally and internationally. Our mission stems from the special role and funding for research promotion and facilitation across the UK and internationally that the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has given to the School. It is supported by the University of London and underpinned and enhanced by the internationally-recognised research produced by our academic staff, and by outstanding taught postgraduate programmes leading to University of London degrees. Our annual review for 2014–15 highlights just a few examples of what the School has been doing to fulfil its mission. This year, we focus particularly on the role of SAS both in promoting a national and international debate about the future of digital humanities, and in providing outstanding digital resources. 2 Promoting the creation of digital Digital Transformations in the Arts and Humanities resources initiative of the AHRC. The project has produced a ‘big data toolkit’ including new open data, tools The School has played a leading role in promoting and research methodologies. For the Institute of debate about the implications and future of Historical Research (IHR), this was also A year of digital humanities. In May 2015, it hosted a major big data (p.28), with three separate major projects international conference, Beyond the digital underway: the AHRC-funded Big Data for the humanities (p.18), in collaboration with the Arts and Humanities which examines the archive Arts & Humanities Research Council’s (AHRC) of UK web space from 1996–2013; Digging into ‘Digital Transformations’ and ‘Science in Culture’ Linked Parliamentary Data, a collaboration with themes. It explored the transformative effects of the Universities of Toronto, King’s College London digital humanities and open data on conventional and the History of Parliament Trust; and another scholarship, policymaking, creativity and cultural AHRC-funded programme, Traces through Time: heritage. Prosopography in Practice across Big Data in collaboration with The National Archives. The School has established its own central Meanwhile, IHR’s British History Online (p.24) initiative, DH@SAS (p.16), to coordinate activities digital library continues to go from strength to in this area that are already taking place across strength. It currently covers more than 1,250 its institutes, to foster collaboration with national volumes and attracts around 10.7 million page and international partners, and to promote public views per year. awareness of digital resources. Several institute- led activities fit under this central initiative. In Other SAS institutes have also made significant February 2015, the Institute of Advanced Legal contributions. The Institute of Commonwealth Studies (IALS) established an Information Law Studies has been digitising the volumes in its and Policy Centre to examine the implications British Documents on the End of Empire of the growth of digital communication and Project (p.30), making tens of thousands of how data is shared and restricted. Meanwhile, documents on decolonisation freely available the Institute of Philosophy (IP) has witnessed online. The Exile Archives Project (p.20) Philosophers and psychologists exploring our database developed by the Institute of Modern senses digitally (p.26), with Dr Ophelia Deroy Languages Research (IMLR) covers a substantial conducting ground-breaking new research with number of archive collections relating to the the Oxford Experimental Psychology Department experiences of British-based German-speaking on multisensory experience in a digital age. exiles from Nazi-occupied Europe. IMLR has also hosted other initiatives from digital storytelling IALS continues to make available digital research through a conference on Experimental Narratives tools of international significance including Case (p.25) to enhanced digital technologies in Linking Papers from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Venus, a collaborative project with The Warburg Council and Historic Scottish Law Reports Institute. (p.22). The issue of ‘big data’ has also been a major theme of research activity within IALS. The institute was a partner in a recently-completed project on Big Data for Law (p.22) funded by the 3 The School of Advanced Study: making a difference Championing the humanities through Promoting interdisciplinary research public engagement The School has launched a number of Digital humanities was also prominent at the important initiatives to foster ground-breaking inaugural Being Human festival of the humanities interdisciplinary research. One important new (p.31) in November 2014. The festival demonstrated development is the creation of a Centre for the School’s capacity to coordinate public Postcolonial Studies (p.37) led by Professor engagement in the humanities on a national scale, Andrew Hussey OBE. As the legacies of the attracting a combined audience of around 18,000 European empires continue to make themselves people to 163 events organised by universities and felt in contemporary politics and society, the independent research organisations across the Centre seeks to encourage a dialogue between UK. The festival’s launch event in Senate House scholars, community groups and policymakers considered the perils of ‘information