Research Projects

Appointed to assist the Holburne Museum and partners in evaluating their well-established community creative arts and heritage wellbeing project. Via a series of groups and courses, the project aims to support local people with a mental health need to improve their wellbeing.

Supporting Northern Heartlands to evaluate the impact of ‘Hidden Heritage & Wellbeing’, an 18-month community heritage project in the town of Willington and surrounding villages, Co Durham. The project aims to improve wellbeing and involve a wider group of people in local heritage via a series of creative heritage-based activities with a wide range of different community groups and individuals, culminating in a co-produced town-wide celebration event.

Appointment to measure the impact of the Tessa Jowell Centre and Dulwich Picture Gallery Creative Partnership Project, a multi-year creativity and wellbeing community project based at the Tessa Jowell Health Centre (TJHC). Between January 2022 and January 2025, TJHC and Dulwich Picture Gallery are working with various community partners – including community organisations, TJHC users and staff, NHS South London CCG, Southwark cultural organisations, artists and GPs – to deliver a creative programme designed to support physical, emotional and mental wellbeing.

Assisting Well-City Salisbury, a consortium of 4 arts and heritage organisations delivering a three-year social prescribing project aiming to improve the wellbeing of individuals (children and adults) in Salisbury with a mental health need via 8-week creative arts and heritage courses, to create a Theory of Change model and evaluation and monitoring strategy. Acting as a 'critical friend’ to the project partners, assisting with data collection, conducting analysis and reporting throughout the project.

The outbreak of COVID-19 and the subsequent public health safety measures and restrictions have had a huge impact on the global heritage sector. One of the most noticeable impacts has been the sector’s necessary shift to digital. An April 2020 survey of 650 museums in 41 countries conducted by the Network of European Museum Organisations shows that more than 60% of museums have increased their online presence since closing due to social distancing and 40% have experienced a large upsurge in online visits.  The COVID-19 pandemic has also had a marked impact on individual’s wellbeing, with individual life satisfaction was lower, and depression and anxiety levels higher than normative reported averages.  These circumstances present a unique opportunity to investigate if engagement with digital heritage has the potential to impact individual’s wellbeing, particularly when wellbeing is low, which this research aims to do.

This research will seek to:
•    Evaluate how engagement with digital heritage sites can impact visitor wellbeing, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
•    Understand how different types of digital heritage sites and diverse demographics of visitors positively and/or negatively impact on subjective wellbeing.
•    Identify what elements of digital heritage provide the greatest positive change to wellbeing.
•    Compare the impact of virtual heritage to that of in-person heritage experiences on wellbeing.

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Project Method:  
This research employs quantitative wellbeing measures such as the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and Modified Wellbeing Scale (MWS) alongside quantitative measures such as free comment space on surveys to identify impacts on individual wellbeing. 

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The mixed-method research methodology has developed from an accurate and critical data capture strategy already piloted on several heritage projects in the UK, USA, India, and Nigeria.  

This is an international project, involving the UK, USA, India and Nigeria and focusing on heritage and well-being. Key tasks include liaising with case study sites to organise data collection, collection of visitor/participant quantitative and qualitative data from a range of public history and archaeology sites, conducting data analysis using SPSS and Wilcoxon Pair Sample Test, and presenting this data to form part of published report.

This ongoing project involves working in collaboration with the BCVM to evaluate their recent HLF-funded renovations and activity programme. This involves the production of an evaluation framework, evaluation materials (e.g. questionnaires), producing and delivering workshops to train stakeholders in data collection, conducting data collection, analysing data and assisting with producing a final report. 

This project aimed to uncover and communicate the little-known history of Moss Side Military Hospital, which treated over 3600 soldiers suffering from Shell Shock. This varied role involved recruiting local volunteers, running oral history and archival training days, helping volunteers with research tasks, liaising with a freelance researcher, organising 3 events to showcase the findings of the project, working in conjunction with academics (Dr Sam Edwards and Dr Ben Edwards) and overseeing the creation of a digital interactive. As project manager, Amy was also responsible for evaluating the project via a number of metrics (surveys, interviews, visitor numbers, visitor comments etc.) and producing a Heritage Lottery Fund evaluation report. 

Amy is employed by the Manchester Centre for Public History and Heritage on an ad-hoc basis to write and submit tenders for public engagement heritage projects, showcasing the talents and capabilities of the Centre/department to organisations such as: English Heritage, Lancashire Museums Authority, Morecambe Bay Partnership, the Beacon Museum and The Atkinson. Heritage projects which she have recently managed on behalf of Manchester Metropolitan University were awarded to the University after her writing a successful tender (bid).

This project aimed to uncover and communicate the little-known history of Moss Side Military Hospital, which treated over 3600 soldiers suffering from Shell Shock. This varied role involved recruiting local volunteers, running oral history and archival training days, helping volunteers with research tasks, managing a freelance researcher, organising 3 events to showcase the findings of the project, working in conjunction with academics (Dr Sam Edwards and Dr Ben Edwards) and overseeing the creation of a digital interactive. As project manager, Amy was also responsible for evaluating the project via a number of metrics (surveys, interviews, visitor numbers, visitor comments etc.) and producing a Heritage Lottery Fund evaluation report. 

This position involved preparing a monograph and two edited collection manuscripts for publication: Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-out Button (Westminster University Press, forthcoming), The Legacy of Thomas Paine in the Transatlantic World (Taylor and Francis, 2017) and Histories on Screen: The Past and Present in Anglo-American Cinema and Television (Bloomsbury, 2018). This was a complex and varied role, which included tasks such as proof-reading, copy-editing, checking references, ensuring the manuscripts – and their constituent elements – were presented according to the appropriate (publisher-specific) style, indexing, and producing bibliographies. 

The purpose of this role was to undertake evaluation of the project and write an evaluation report, to be submitted to the project’s funders, the Heritage Lottery Fund. This job therefore involved organising, conducting and transcribing oral history interviews, creating and collating questionnaires, analysing the results of the aforementioned evaluation material and social media channels, coding them thematically and writing a report, detailing the impact of the project. Various other administrative tasks were also undertaken, such as writing press releases and creating event promotion materials and invites.