Â鶹¾«Ñ¡

The University Â鶹¾«Ñ¡ recently renewed its civic promise to its home city, with pledges to support Birmingham’s people and build its local, regional and national reputation. This is no more evident than in our ongoing commitment to cultural heritage.

Through our world-renowned International Centre for Heritage, the College of Arts and Law is helping to cultivate the next generation of heritage professionals and provide the cutting-edge research-based tools the industry needs to sustain itself in a challenging environment. And as an institution, we’re also the proud custodians of incredible, world-class cultural collections and heritage sites that are celebrated attractions for the city.

From the and fine art of the Barber Institute to the dinosaur skeletons of Lapworth Museum, , the University’s Edgbaston campus is a vital draw for tourists to the city and a valued (and free) amenity for the local community. But less well known is the treasure trove of rare books, manuscripts, objects, antiquities and archives in our Cadbury Research Library and Research and Cultural Collections – among them one of the world’s earliest fragments of the Qur’an and the coffin lid for Egyptian pharaoh Ahmose I.

We’re not just carefully documenting and preserving these unique artefacts, but also leading revelatory and exciting new research into them. The , for example, has already uncovered a ‘lost book’ by the renowned cultural studies pioneer among his donated private papers. And a new AHRC-funded project will examine the five in our collections to explore contemporary feminine ideals in Nigeria’s Cross River State.

We want to share and bring these extraordinary collections to as many people as possible. As well as loans to museums and galleries around the world and a constant programme of free exhibitions on campus and at the Exchange in the city centre, our Culture Forward initiative has organised community engagement events around our Mingana Collection that toured Birmingham. It also helped digitise and restore to prominence the city’s long-forgotten Shakespeare Memorial Library in the .

At a time of acute funding pressure for our region’s cultural and heritage industry, Culture Forward and other College of Arts and Law initiatives, like Midlands Art Papers, are bringing together and working with as many galleries, museums and cultural organisations as possible to support the sector and share best practice. It’s this convening and research role that the University is uniquely placed to deliver and help Birmingham fulfil its full potential as a world leader in cultural heritage.