Culture and heritage

Our cultural heritage has enormous power and potential to positively impact us and society, including our wellbeing, mental health, and respect for human dignity. Our researchers are investigating and protecting globally significant heritage around the world and in the renowned galleries, museums and cultural collections at the University.

In a time of rapid societal change, our researchers are unlocking access to global cultures and heritage to help improve inclusivity, wellbeing, and belonging.
Professor Helen Abbott
Head of the College of Arts and Law

Better understanding and celebration of diverse cultures is what drives many of our most ambitious international research projects and local community initiatives – from the Mekong Delta to Digbeth – helping to foster greater connections between people and build a more harmonious world.

Global and local heritage

We’re developing long-term, sustainable ways to ensure everyone can access the unique knowledge and insights of all the world’s cultures, working with partners to protect and understand important heritage – both internationally and locally – while opening up our own cultural gems for collaborative research and public engagement.

From local community projects to consulting for UNESCO, our International Centre for Heritage is a world-leader in sustainable and innovative approaches to heritage management.
Midlands Art Papers is a regional collaboration between researchers at the University of Birmingham and practitioners from 13 partner museums and galleries, seeking to open up public collections of art and design to new perspectives and develop better understanding and accessibility.
The £1.7m Everything to Everybody project helped to digitise and promote the almost-forgotten Birmingham Shakespeare Memorial Library, engaging thousands of local people in a range of high-profile activities and events.
The University’s Research and Cultural Collections are home to an extraordinary array of artefacts, including ancient pottery, contemporary sculpture, African textiles and one of the world’s oldest Qur’an manuscripts.
The Barber Institute of Fine Arts is home to a globally important art collection and Europe’s most significant collection of Roman, Byzantine and medieval coins.
The Centre for Material Cultures and Materialities works closely with art collections across the University, examining how the material world sustains and expresses social relationships and power structures.

Connecting cultures

We are changing lives and bridging cultural gaps through innovative projects that celebrate diversity and foster social inclusion, shared ownership and a sense of belonging.

Professor Alexander Cannon's 5-year research project, SoundDecisions, uses local musical traditions to help promote greener farming practices in the Mekong Delta.
Dr Naleem Hussain led Culture Forward’s Qur'an in the City project, encouraging greater public awareness and engagement with the University’s 2,000-year-old manuscript.
Professor Sabine Lee’s research and network for Children Born of War is looking to help these children and their mothers reintegrate into post-conflict societies.
Dr Abigail Rokison-Woodall’s Signing Shakespeare project helps D/deaf people in schools and organisations across the country to access the playwright’s greatest works.
Professor Sara Jones’ project, Post-Socialist Britain, explores what happens to the connection between collective memory and political identity in the process of migration for Germans, Poles and Ukrainians living in the UK.
Dr Amy Burge leads the AHRC-funded Muslim Women’s Popular Fiction Network, bringing together researchers, students, teachers, activists, readers, authors, and publishers to talk about popular and genre texts written by Muslim women.
Dr Emma Wagstaff helped create free school resources with the Stephen Spender Trust, using translated poems to explore the relationship between visual art and poetry.

Language, form and faith

We’re using powerful computer models to conduct large-scale analysis of language systems and historic texts, as well as researching the cultural values of different faiths, to open up language learning to the masses and strengthen relations among diverse communities.

Professor Dagmar Divjak and Professor Petar Milin lead the extensive Out of Our Minds project, which aims to build a more multilingual society by uncovering building blocks for language learning that are easier and more instinctive to understand.
ITSEE – the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing – uses advanced computing and digital tools to compare old, original manuscripts and create more accurate transcriptions of famous texts, like the Bible.
The Centre for Corpus Research provides access to a range of corpora and online research tools to analyse literature in new ways.
The Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion works with faith communities and policy-makers to develop informed agendas for positive social change.
Professor Peter Morey’s AHRC-funded project, Empathy, Narrative and Cultural Values, investigates how cultural values, particularly those rooted in Islam, shape individuals' engagement with stories, especially in educational and health contexts.
Professor Candida Moss’ recent book, God’s Ghostwriters, uncovers the hidden stories of the slaves who helped write the Bible and disseminate early Christianity.