This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 632694
Coventry University
Coventry University (CovUni) has an established regional, national and international presence, with over 13,000 students and 1,800 staff. With its trading arm, Coventry University Enterprises (CUE), CovUni has extensive experience in the delivery of EU-funded activity; FP experience dates from FP2; further European collaborative management experience from lead and partner roles is described below. CovUni’s School of Art & Design (CSAD) has academic, practical and technological expertise ranging from crafts to digital archiving, dance analysis, screendance, digital library development, pedagogy in immersive environments and e-learning, public policy and the creative industries. CovUni has considerable expertise in the interfaces between cultural heritage and digital technologies. It is currently leading two major EU-funded projects, RICHES (FP7 SSH STREP 2013) and Europeana Space (ICT-PSP-CIP 2013, BPN). In 2013 CovUni completed the JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee)-funded New Connections: THE BT e-Archive project, with BT and The National Archives, which has catalogued, digitised and developed a searchable online archive of almost half a million photographs, reports, artworks and correspondence preserved by BT over the last 150 years. A recent CovUni project is Shakespeare Byte-Sized, funded by the UK Technology Strategy Board, with Stratford-upon-Avon’s Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (SBT) and Hewlett Packard, to digitise and support wide user engagement with the archive of unique materials held by SBT.
Selected EU-funded projects
GALA – Games and Learning Alliance, FP7 RTD; DAPHNE III PROJECT – COMMUNITARY EMBRACE – ICEBERG project, DAPHNE 3; DigiBIC – Delivering New Technologies for Creative Industries, FP7; CLUSTER 2020 – European Creative Industries Alliance, ICT-PSP-CIP; RICHES – Renewal, Innovation and Change in European Society, FP7 – SSH; E-SPACE – Europeana Space, ICT-PSP-CIP.
Website: http://wwwm.coventry.ac.uk/
ROLE IN THE PROJECT
CovUni has embraced the potential of digital technologies to enhance users’ experience of CH. Our interests are: the mapping of cultural networks; heritage landscapes both physical and conceptual, and the social changes which inform them; the management of archival content and the application of digital technologies to heritage, research, education and tourism contexts. COVUNI is WP Leader of WP4 Pilot and Case Studies and will also participate in task T3.4 Strategic Research Agenda and in task T2.1 Study on key characteristics and requirements.
CONTACT PEOPLE
- Neil Forbes (n.forbes@coventry.ac.uk) Director of Research, and Professor of International History at CovUni. His research interests focus on the history of international political and economic relations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, specialising in the study of the interwar years. He is now leading RICHES and was director of New Connections, the BT e-Archive project (see above). As Director of Research his responsibilities include chairing the Research Committee with oversight of University research strategy and implementation, the delivery of programmes and services for research students, directing staff learning and development activities in research, and the governance of ethics and research integrity in the University. He is Vice-Chair of the Modern Universities Research Group.
- Sarah Whatley (s.whatley@coventry.ac.uk) Professor of Dance and Director of the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) at CovUni. Her research is primarily focused on the interface between dance and new technologies, dance analysis, somatic dance practice and pedagogy, and inclusive dance practices. She is Editor of the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices and is on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Screendance. She is a member of the AHRC Peer Review College, the International Education Workgroup for The Forsythe Company’s Motion Bank project and is Consultant: Digital Environment for The Routledge Performance Archive. She leads In/Visible Differences, an AHRC-funded project on the relationship between dance, disability and the law; and led the AHRC-funded Siobhan Davies digital archive project.
