Heritage research at Sheffield Hallam is located mainly in the Humanities Research Centre, which houses English and history, and in the Cultural, Communication and Computing Research Institute.

The Heritage Consortium at SHU

Sheffield Hallam University is a member of the Heritage Consortium, a Doctoral training initiative established in 2013 and supported by postgraduate funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

The Consortium trains the next generation of heritage professionals and researchers with a focus on cross-fertilisation and dissemination of multi-disciplinary good practice.

MbyRes studentship

In addition to the doctoral studentship scheme operated through the Heritage Consortium, Sheffield Hallam is offering one full studentship on its MbyRes programme each year for five years from 2014–15 entry.

South Yorkshire Through Time

The Humanities Research Centre offers opportunities for involvement in the South Yorkshire Through Time community history hub and archive, which is being developed by historians at Sheffield Hallam in collaboration with professional public historians in South Yorkshire, including Sheffield Archives, Experience Barnsley, Sheffield Community Heritage Forum and the Oral History Society.

The website, which will be launched in spring 2014, will transform the practice of community history in South Yorkshire, bringing together under one virtual roof community-based projects and professionals with expertise in oral history, public history, heritage interpretation and the development of materials for schools' history. We can offer training and development in all these areas.

Readerships and Literary Cultures 1900–1950

Training in oral history and interviewing skills is also offered through the Readerships and Literary Cultures 1900–1950 Special Collection, which preserves 1,000 early editions of out-of-print novels that were significant to contemporary readers either because they sold well or because the names of their authors were widely recognised and had come to represent the tastes of particular readerships.

The collection is designed to support research into the formation of literary tastes and negotiation of reading hierarchies and the ways in which cultural memory remembers some popular authors and works and forgets others.

It also focuses attention on the book as material object, and the ways in which paratextual elements (dust covers, illustrations, advertising material, prefaces, different editions of the same work, owners' inscriptions) are evidence of the production, marketing, consumption, reception and conceptualisation of writing as cultural activity.

Such a collection of popular fiction from the first half of the twentieth century does not exist elsewhere either in university or public libraries.

The Cultural, Communication and Computing Research Institute

We offer opportunities for involvement in in a range of heritage projects that help build a stronger connection with local heritage and are creating innovative approaches to archiving and enhancing the accessibility of tangible and intangible heritage.

These include

• a four-year EU-funded project Material Encounters with Digital Cultural Heritage, which aims to develop tools to allow heritage professionals to build their own interactive exhibition
• Castleford Heritage Project (in partnership with the Castleford Heritage Trust), funded by the AHRC within the Connected Communities initiative, which aims to equip local people with the skills, opportunities and enthusiasm to explore and document their own cultural heritage in exciting and innovative ways
• Objects in 3D project (funded through a JISC award and in partnership with Museums Sheffield), which uses state-of-the-art fast 3D scanning technologies to display objects from Sheffield's unique metalwork collection in 3D, to be experienced virtually from anywhere in the world and celebrating Sheffield's unique place in the world history of metal-making
• 'My Exhibition - Designing for Affective Communication, Personalisation and Social Experience' (funded within the AHRC Designing for the 21st Century scheme and in partnership with the Universities of Sheffield, Leeds, York and Manchester & the Royal Armouries Museum), which investigated ways of creating personalised visitor experiences using ambient interactive computer technology in museum contexts

There is a substantial interest in heritage sites as visitor attractions, including the tensions between heritage site protection and tourism development (in the UK and internationally), local sustainability and the historic landscape, the representation of heritage sites and the position of heritage and specific heritage sites in policy and political agendas.