Doctor of Philosophy [Ph.D] [Museum, Gallery and Heritage Studies] From Newcastle University

MPhil and PhD students in Museum, Gallery and Heritage Studies are based in the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies (ICCHS), a leading academic centre for research and teaching at Newcastle.

ICCHS is internationally renowned for its research, securing significant support (around £3m since 2008) from a variety of funders, such as the UK Research Councils and the European Commission. We have a thriving, high-profile interdisciplinary research community made up of postgraduate research students and experienced academic researchers who are key figures in their fields.

Our academic supervisors have significant experience and expertise in interdisciplinary research and practice in the UK and abroad. Through our emphasis on empirical research and having a grounding in professional practice, our research alumni have been successful in securing careers in academia, governmental organisations, and the cultural and creative industry sectors worldwide.

Our research students pursue a variety of topics that explore both historical and contemporary issues with local, national and international dimensions. They have also consistently achieved high submission and completion rates in their chosen programme of study. Recent student research topics in ICCHS include:

• attitudes towards human remains
• constructions and uses of Welsh identity in American museums
• the social roles and regulation of art museum education in China and Taiwan
• the management and interpretation of archaeological sites in Turkey
• meaning making around historic photographic collections on Flickr

Key research themes

Our key research themes are:

Cultural politics and policy

• factors that determine how cultural policy is constructed, institutionally, locally, regionally, nationally and internationally
• how management strategies affect heritage resources
• the impact of large-scale constitutional change upon cultural policy
• intended and unintended consequences of implementing international conventions, charters and instruments
• contribution of research to cultural policy construction
• the intersection of political movements and agendas with heritage
• definitions and attributed values of heritage
• Identity, community and place
• construction and representation of identities, places and communities through heritage
• how heritage is used by, and for, communities
• relationships between notions of place and identities, communities, and heritages locally regionally, nationally and internationally
• principles of community museology and ecomuseology practice in different contexts
• relationships between heritage tourism and identities, communities and places
• identities produced through the consumption of heritage
• relationship between identity construction and wellbeing

Media and representation

• how media works in heritage organisations and how organisations work as media
• factors shaping the production, morphology and consumption of media and media representations in heritage organisations
• representations made possible through institutional technologies specific to heritage organisations and how they are analysed to understand culture, society and knowledge
• study and design of digital heritage applications and digital cultural engagement