Cultural and Museum Studies Discipline+ Catalyst

What is culture? How do we shape and engage with it? What does innovation look like in a cultural context?  How can we build more accessible, inclusive and transformational ways of thinking and working in cultural settings?

Incorporating Archaeology, Art History, Cultural Policy and Management, Heritage, Information and Museum Studies, this Discipline+ Catalyst operates in a fast-changing field. We use research-driven frameworks to critically interrogate and explore interconnected cultural and heritage issues as a means to innovate and further understanding across our disciplines. Our Catalyst actively encourages doctoral researchers to challenge established categories by way of an outward-facing interdisciplinary lens, and to understand the contexts within which your research will be applied.

Our training programme supports PhD researchers across Scotland to advance your skills and reflect on core issues. You can engage with the materials from our 2020 short course on 'Engagement and Impact’ here.

Upcoming Events

• Ethnographic Research Methods for the Arts & Humanities 25 Feb & 11 March 2025

This course will offer you the opportunity to discuss your projects with academics and practitioners from an arts and humanities perspective. We will also carry out some collective practical work on ethnographic observation, interviews and fieldnotes.

• Interpreting historic houses, spaces, environments 5 March 2025

This workshop will take place in the grounds of Blair Castle to consider external effects of historic houses and spaces, for example, the interrelated aspects of the immediate landscape of the castle (and associated village) which represent ‘landedness’ a form of power associated with landownership. In this workshop we’ll explore how architects, artists, designers, and writers have responded to these cultivated and wild landscapes, especially in the twentieth and twenty-first century, dominated by anxieties over climate change and sustainability.

Past Events and Related Resources

• Immersive Technologies in Cultural Heritage Research and Practice 20 April 2021

This course will offer the opportunity to experience and try out a range of practical applications of immersive technologies 3D scanning and printing and visualisation in cultural heritage from researchers, cultural heritage practitioners, and commercial companies working in this area.

Click here to watch recordings from the event.

• Culture and the Climate Crisis 27 April 2022

What does a climate-conscious cultural sector look like, and how do we get there? Is it by declarations of emergency, by reduction of institutions' carbon emissions? In the wake of COP26, this timely online roundtable brings together a range of speakers from Scotland's museums, galleries and universities to interrogate the climate crisis and its impact on the sector. 

Click here to watch a recording from the event.

• Can we decolonise our shared heritage and public memory? 17 May 2022

This online event offers a space for reflection and discussion of the concept of ‘decolonising’ in heritage and public memory. Invited speakers and university faculty will introduce some key themes and points of intervention, drawn from their own experiences of working in public history, engagement and heritage.

• R for social media research in cultural and museum studies 26 May 2023

When published, all event details and registration links will be found on the SGSAH Events and Training page. 

Have an idea for training? Want to learn more about a specific event? Get in touch with the Discipline+ Catalyst contact at your HEI. ↓