Impact case study database

Raised awareness and understanding of coastal historic landfill pollution for national and international regulators and policy makers

Spencer’s team have increased regulator and policy-maker awareness and understanding of coastal historic landfills (CHL) waste pollution at national and international levels. From 2015 to present, Spencer and Brand were invited to report findings to the United Nations, Environment Agency, Defra, TEAM 2100 (Thames Estuary Asset Management) and local government authorities. Spencer was invited to give evidence for the UN Special Rapporteur on Toxic Waste's visit to the UK (January 2017). The subsequent report was submitted to the UK Government in September 2017 [5.2, p.12] and highlighted concerns regarding the large number of CHLs and the lack of national regulatory response and resources to assess and manage these pollution risks. Brand was invited to report to the National Local Authority Coastal Interest Group (March 2017) and East Anglia Regional Flood and Coastal Committee (Feb 2017), whilst Spencer was invited to present evidence to Defra (‘Shaping the evidence for urban diffuse water pollution’ 2016), the Public Policy Exchange (2016) and EU Enhanced Landfill Mining Symposium (2020).

This engagement has raised awareness locally, nationally and internationally. The East Anglia area manager of the Environment Agency stated:

‘The new knowledge and evidence provided has raised the profile of the challenge to the most senior levels in the Environment Agency and Defra’ [5.4]

and a key member of staff at the Belgian Public Waste Agency found that Spencer’s ‘research on historic landfills, climate change and environmental risk was an eye-opener to [the] team’ [5.5]. In the Netherlands the executive agency of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management found that:

‘[Spencer’s] resource brought the risk of flooding's of former landfills and the potential release of pollution to our attention’ [5.6].

Spencer’s work has also raised the profile of CHLs at the EU Commission - ‘the outputs from QMUL research were also the main driver of a (proposed) revision of the EU Landfill Directive 1999/31/EC’ [5.5] – and now underpins a forthcoming EU policy brief on ‘Climate Change, Flooding and Landfill Safety’ (NewMine 2020) [5.11]. This new knowledge and understanding has provided the ‘stimulus for [East Solent Coastal Partnership] to set up a national working group as part of the Local Government Authority Special Interest Group (LGA SIG) on landfill’ [5.3] and provided local authorities with the evidence to lobby Defra for changes to policy and funding [5.3].

Informed public understanding of coastal historic landfill pollution

‘The Secret Life of Landfill: A Rubbish History,’ a BBC4 documentary based on this research, was broadcast twice (26^th August 2018 and 1^st October 2018), attracting over a million views ‘The wider importance of the BBC4 documentary as a vehicle for introducing the public to new and challenging scientific issues […] has been evidenced by its critical success and public reach’ [5.7]. The documentary won the 2019 Royal Television Society Scotland Award (Best Documentary and Specialist Factual: Science and Natural History) and was shortlisted for the 2019 Royal Television Society Awards (Science and Natural History) (RTS 2019) and the Grierson Awards Best Science Documentary (TernTV 2020).

The documentary received powerful reviews confirming its efficacy in bringing this topic to the public domain: ‘The Secret Life of Landfill: A Rubbish History (BBC4, Thursday) was a genuine eye-opener’ (Spectator 2018) [5.12]. As the presenter George McGavin says [5.7], the Queen Mary research ‘provided a very convincing message and has significantly raised the profile of this problem in the national media’ and led to significant traffic on social media and a very strong public response, e.g., ‘What an eye opener’ and ‘Brilliant programme […] I think it should be shown in all schools, to children of all ages. It is their future, and they will have a huge influence on their parents to think about their own waste’.

Spencer was also invited to contribute to ‘800,000 tonnes: Waste Management and Recycling in Essex,’ a National Lottery and Arts Council funded public programme of displays, site tours, and discussions run by Focal Point Gallery, Southend (1^st – 29^th February 2020). As the Deputy Director of the Focal Point Gallery stated: ‘The subject matter […] Professor Spencer highlighted […] has enabled us to realise the strength of feeling on these matters across our audiences, and will influence our future exhibition programme, with discussions around a display in summer 2021’ [5.8]. Furthermore, the Queen Mary ‘Historic Landfill’ project website has generated 19,000 views (as of October 2020).

At the national level, the profile and public understanding of the issue of CHL pollution has been raised by significant on-going media coverage generated by the research. Interviews with Spencer have formed the basis of six national news reports in The Independent: Landfill dumps across UK 'at risk of leaking hazardous chemicals' (21st February 2016); The Guardian: Pollution risk from over 1,000 old UK landfill sites due to coastal erosion (5th May 2016); The Times: Storm risk to coastal landfill sites (26th January 2018); ITV News Tyneside (23^rd February 2019), BBC London News (2019), BBC Look North (November 2020), The New Statesman: Secrets of the shore: the landfill rubbish laid bare by the sea (30^th October 2019); Daily Mail: Plastic rubbish from five decades of pollution flows into the Thames as old landfill site full of toxic waste is exposed to erosion (6^th November 2019), Daily Mirror: Landfill site exposed by coastal erosion sees toxic chemicals leak into rivers (6^th November 2019); and features on radio and TV: BBC Radio 4 File on Four: What Lies Beneath: The Legacy of Landfill (20th June 2017) and Countryfile BBC1 (9^th December 2018) [5.12].

Changed practice and policy at local and national levels in the UK, Belgium and Netherlands

This research has directly informed local shoreline management practices in Essex and South Suffolk and the Thames Estuary, in areas where coastal waste is present, at risk from either tidal flooding and/or erosion and is currently constraining coastal asset management decisions. This management problem was identified in the Essex and South Suffolk Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) and the Thames Estuary 2100 Plan, and it was noted that ‘to deliver the actions in the SMP the Environment Agency have commissioned a PhD with Queen Mary University of London to identify pilot areas of contaminated land at flood risk’ [5.9, p.168]. One of the study sites Spencer and team investigated was Hadleigh Marshes, Thames Estuary that was identified in the SMP as a candidate for Managed Realignment. The research identified significant risks to the marine environment should the site be flooded or breached [3.5]. As the Environment Agency area manager noted:

‘[s]ince [the] QMUL research, a policy decision has been taken that Managed Realignment is no longer a viable option here because of the quantified rise of large-scale release of pollutants to the marine environment’ [5.4].

Spencer and her team’s proposed risk screening assessment [3.6] has also now been trialled at a national level on high risk sites by the Environment Agency [5.10] and has informed the work of the East Solent Coastal Partnership [5.3].

The presence of solid wastes in coastal, alluvial and fluvial settings is also a global problem. As the testimonials from the Rijkswaterstaat (RWS) and the Public Waste Agency of Flanders (OVAM) show [5.6, 5.5], Spencer’s work led to both the Netherlands and Belgium carrying out national assessments of their landfill datasets to determine potential flood and erosion risk:

‘[i]nspired by QMUL’s research and using approaches set out in Brand et al. (2017) [3.3], OVAM performed a GIS-analysis on its national landfill database to estimate the number of landfills vulnerable to coastal erosion and flooding’ [5.5]; and

‘[s]ince engaging with Prof Spencer’s research we [RWS] have now also carried out an assessment of our national datasets on landfills to explore and quantify which are at risk’ [5.6].

The research has also provided the evidence to trial landfill mining (reclamation of buried waste) in Flanders: ‘OVAM identified two pilot landfill sites in alluvial areas at flood risk to test the possibility of eliminating/mining landfills’ [5.5]. The research has, therefore, changed national policy outside the UK. In Flanders:

‘[r]esearch and findings carried out by Prof Spencer’s team at QMUL on historic landfills has had a significant impact on policy and policy makers in the Flemish region (and) led to the inclusion of historic landfills in the planning process for flood risk control and amendment of our national landfill management policy’ [5.5].

Changed industrial understanding of coastal historical landfill pollution to inform guidelines

The research has also increased industry awareness and understanding through meetings and stakeholder engagement at a national level with invited talks at Environment Analyst Business Summit: Waste Management (May 2019), the Construction Industry Research and Innovation Association (2015, 2019) and the Institute of Civil Engineers. In addition, Spencer and O’Shea delivered an international webinar to Arcadis (2015), as part of their professional development programme for their consultants and engineers. Findings have also been reported in national industry publications; The ENDS Report: Landfill: What lurks beneath (23rd September 2016) and The ENDS Report: One in ten historic landfills at risk of releasing waste (21st November 2017).

In 2013, the CIRIA – the independent, not for profit provider of good practice guidelines for the construction industry, local authorities and the EA – presented its ‘Guidance on the management of landfill sites and land contamination on eroding or low-lying coastlines’ [5.9]. This identified that outputs from Queen Mary’s research would help develop evidence-based scenarios and guide national policy in future iterations of the guidance [5.9, p. 167-8]. A supplement to this guidance has been published [5.1] and is ‘informed by an Environment Agency funded project (Brand, 2017) and other relevant research at Queen Mary University of London (Appendix 1), which focussed on diffuse pollution and potential contamination from eroded waste for coastal landfill sites in Essex’. The specific recommendations based on the Queen Mary research involve the need to develop methods to: 1) determine the magnitude, transport and impact of eroded solid waste and the response of leachate mobility to increasing salinity, 2) quantify transport mechanisms and harm to environmental receptors, and 3) assess risk of environmental pollution from erosion of coastal landfill sites.

Impact on river management in Europe

The multi-scale Hydrogeomorphological Framework has underpinned the rewriting of European Union guidance for river management under the Water Framework Directive (WFD) by demonstrating the following:

1. the interaction of ecological and physical processes to create the river’s landform-habitat mosaic both over time and across spatial scales within and far beyond the boundaries of individual river reaches; and

2. the key role of vegetation in driving river morphodynamics within these interactions.

In March 2015, Gurnell presented the Framework to ECOSTAT, the working group on the Common Implementation Strategy of the WFD and the body charged with ensuring a collective and co-operative approach to the challenges of integrated river basin management across EU member states. The chair notes the Framework’s role in enabling the necessary harmonization of assessment methods, and concludes that:

‘Key to the success of this approach was the active engagement of Prof. Gurnell [with] groups working on the science-policy interface such as ECOSTAT’ [5.1] .

The ensuing impact of the method at EU scale is demonstrated by its incorporation into a new European standard. As the chair of the Working Group (CEN/ TC 230/ WG 25) in the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) that produced this Standard, confirms Gurnell ‘played a key role in redesigning and rewriting’ [5.2] the Guidance Standard for Assessing the HydromorphologicalFeatures of Rivers (EN 14614:2020), which was published in 2020. The new guidance standard is heavily based on the REFORM framework. It delivers a common mode of Hydromorphological assessment to river professionals and to the National Standards Bodies in 34 European countries including the UK (British Standards Institution).

Transforming river monitoring and assessment

Underpinned by cutting-edge river science, Framework-compatible reach and sub-reach tools (MoRPh CSci, MoRPh Pro, River Type, PlaceMarker) have been designed to operate through information systems with easy-to-use data entry, mapping and download features [5.9]. These methods assemble and interpret data on the sedimentary, geomorphological, hydraulic and vegetation characteristics of rivers, and the degree of human interventions and pressures along them and their margins. In the case of Placemarker, assessments go beyond the river edges to evaluate the biodiversity, landscape, heritage and amenity characteristics of the surrounding river corridor / floodplain. All tools are supported with training packages (taught courses, manuals, field guides, field survey forms, worked examples), enabling stakeholders from volunteers to professionals to produce scientifically rigorous data on specific rivers. These easily accessible supporting materials have greatly enhanced uptake of the tools and their impact on river monitoring and management.

PlaceMarker underpins the work of the EA’s National Environmental Assessment and Sustainability (NEAS) team for pre- and post-appraisal of river projects, where it is used to assess innovative approaches to environmental design. As of 15 December 2020, 91 EA staff have been trained and the survey is being used on over 80 river stretches in England. This adds to the widespread use of the Urban River Survey, for which 198 surveyors have been trained and 669 surveys have been conducted since 2000, mainly in England, Wales and the Republic of Ireland, but also in Belgium, Germany and Singapore. In November 2018, an evidence-gathering exercise was conducted on PlaceMarker’s impact within NEAS to ensure its continued relevance. The Head of NEAS, said that the tool had made ‘a significant difference’ to their ways of working and that its ability ‘to make specific improvement into the future as needs require [was] an important aspect of the usability of the tool as flood risk management moves toward creating resilient communities to respond to the climate emergency’ [5.3].

The MoRPh CSci tool (available since mid-2016) has been rapidly adopted and has significantly improved river monitoring and project appraisal by ‘citizen science’ volunteers interested in the ‘health’ of their rivers. The EA’s Principal Research Scientist (Hydromorphology), said:

‘Until this approach was developed, we did not have a consistent approach that we could use to assess river habitats and processes at a relevant scale to match our biological sampling […] Your expertise and openness to collaboration and including us within the development and trial of the approach has been key to its success’ [5.4].

As of 15 December 2020, there are 488 MoRPh CSci surveyors who have jointly undertaken and uploaded 4487 MoRPh surveys. In addition to 49 EA staff, many of whom are involved in running catchment partnerships, other river professionals (e.g. Affinity Water, Broads Authority, EA, Forestry England, National Trust, Wessex Water) and numerous NGOs (e.g. Rivers Trusts: Essex, Ouse and Arun, Severn, South-East, Thames21; Wildlife Trusts: Dorset, Essex, Kennet, Norfolk, Suffolk, Trent, Wiltshire) are using MoRPh CSci to evaluate river restoration and natural flood management projects.

The success of MoRPh CSci led to the development of a professional version, MoRPh Pro, which combines with a new desk-based tool, River Type, to produce a geomorphologically-driven River Condition Assessment (RCA) [see 3.6 for a full description of the RCA]. The RCA feeds into Natural England’s / DEFRA’s Biodiversity Metric 2.0 (BM2) [5.6]. BM2:

‘provides developers, planners, land managers, and others with a tool to help limit damage to nature […] and to help it thrive’ [5.6].

It uses habitat features as a proxy measure for capturing the value and importance of nature, taking into account their size, ecological condition, location and proximity to nearby ‘connecting’ features. BM2 enables assessments to be made of the present and potential future biodiversity value of a site. BM2 is approaching the end of the beta testing stage with the final version currently scheduled for release in 2021. The River Condition Assessment (RCA) component of BM2 (i.e. linked MoRPh Pro and River Type tools) was released in September 2019. Training has been significantly impacted by Covid-19, although development of an online training course has maintained the training programme through 2020. As of 15 December 2020, there are 40 EA staff with access to MoRPh Pro; 67 surveyors from 23 environmental consultancies (including Aecom, Arup, Ascerta, Atkins, Black & Veatch, cbec, FPCR, Jacobs, Mott MacDonald); and 25 surveyors from 17 Rivers Trusts who are trained in the RCA and have jointly collected 2121 MoRPh Pro surveys. The EA’s lead on BM2 [5.6], said:

‘The survey you have developed […] is a major component in evaluating Biodiversity Net Gain for Rivers and Streams. Without your input we do not feel that the evaluation for rivers and streams would have been as robust, or methodical’ [5.5].

Applied research continues to expand the MoRPh family of high-impact assessment tools [5.9]. These will soon include MoRPh Estuaries and MoRPh Canals physical assessment tools and Sediment budget and Floodplain characterisation tools, founded on collaborations with the EA, Thames21 and the Canal and River Trust.

Through a variety of activities related to the Working Beyond the Border (WBB) project, Smith has contributed to the reform of trade policy in Europe. This has led to enhanced trade policy provisions, improved agreements between the EU and trading partners, and the further development of sustainability goals in international trade.

The research shaped the European Commission’s Trade and Sustainable Development reform agenda and informed critical debate in the European Parliament

In 2017, Smith organised a stakeholder meeting in Brussels attended by European Commission officials, which led to a co-authored response paper to the Commission’s consultation on TSD reform; the response paper included several policy proposals based on Smith’s research findings [5.1]. Following this, Commission officials invited the WBB project team to further discuss policy reform. The Trade Policy Officer at the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) noted that this response ‘gave many civil society organisations a framework to use for their own submissions’ to the consultation [5.2]. The submission to the European Commission’s consultation process [5.1] was also cited by the Swedish Board of Trade in its submission in December 2017 [5.3].

Smith and his co-author’s recommendations were mirrored in the European Commission’s ‘way forward’ document (February 2018) [5.4] and reflected to some degree in future EU trade agreements. This included the need to:

• adequately resource the institutional structures of the TSD process

• widen the remit for civil society engagement and monitoring of EU trade agreements

• move away from a standard template TSD chapter to one that recognises the specific labour and global supply chain issues and priority areas in each context and

• achieve early ratification of international labour conventions to maximise leverage on trade partners to ensure policy change.

For example, the EU-Mercosur 2019 trade agreement includes a new article 11, specifically focused on “trade and the responsible management of supply chains” [5.5], an issue highlighted as a key limitation in previous TSD approaches by Smith’s research.

Additionally, Smith gave two invited presentations at the European Parliament, which fed into the policy reform process. The first in June 2017 was to a European Parliament International Trade Committee working group. The event’s organiser said the research presented gave a “fresh impetus and new ideas on how our members [of the European Parliament] can push the [European] commission to develop a more effective monitoring process, improve scrutiny and consider new mechanisms for implementation of FTAs” [5.6].

In November 2017 Smith presented his research to a conference on the Future of EU Trade Policy, which Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and representatives from 12 EU national parliaments attended [5.7, 5.8]. A former MEP who participated said the research “was particularly helpful in identifying the root causes of the inefficiencies of [the] EU’s trade policy and proposed action for policy change” [5.7]. This led to a “plenary debate in the European Parliament in January 2018 on the basis of a parliamentary question drafted by our Group”, which raised, “in particular the shortcomings in civil society monitoring mechanisms” that the research identified [5.7]. The presentations therefore informed debates in the European Parliament, and recommendations from the research contributed to the adoption by the European Commission of its reform to the TSD model [5.7].

The research shaped debate and policy positions of international trade union organisations on the EU’s TSD approach and put pressure on the European Commission for reform

In 2017, Smith co-organised a series of events for key stakeholders, including:

• An event with the European Trade Union Institute (September 2017), in which he presented WBB’s key findings to the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), ITUC staff, and delegates attending an ETUC meeting.

• A workshop for trade union participants from EU trade partner countries (Korea, Moldova, Colombia) in December 2017.

• A public discussion on the European Commission’s reform proposals involving trade union representatives and 40 participants from key EU institutions and civil society groups in Brussels.

• Ongoing discussions with the ITUC that shaped its position on the effectiveness and potential reform of the Commission’s TSD approach.

A key member of ITUC staff stated that, overall, the project was:

of particular importance to my and other colleagues’ work because it provided […] new insight on the nexus between trade and sustainable development […] The project was impressive in identifying possible roots of the inefficiencies of EU’s trade policy and it proposed action for policy change […] [T]he project has been outstanding […] both in terms of the quality of its outcomes and the catalytic role it played in organising civil society in Brussels to engage on the trade-sustainable development agenda with a fresh look [5.2].

The research contributed to the reform of EU trade policy through the creation of a civil society network

Smith and WBB colleagues, in partnership with the ITUC and ActAlliance in Brussels, established Domestic Advisory Groups (DAGs) for Change, a civil society/academic group with members of trade agreement labour monitoring mechanisms. The team’s research and policy advice influenced the DAGs for Change discussions and informed its response to the European Commission’s July 2017 reform consultation. An ITUC member of the group stated that:

[t]he ideas from the WBB project […] have been important to the work of that group and have been used in the development of common positions […] on what reforms should be made to TSD chapters […] Partly as a result of pressure from the trade union and civil society groups who are involved in DAGS for Change, the European Commission is now itself recognising the limitations of TSD chapters within EU trade agreements [5.2].

Members of the DAGs for Change group have used the project’s findings to push for various reforms to EU trade and investment policy through the European Commission’s Expert Group on Trade Agreements [5.9]. Other members of the international NGO community have also drawn on the WBB findings, including Action Aid [5.10] and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung [5.11].

The research informed a major ILO report and contributed to the development of ILO training materials

The ILO, which sets labour standards worldwide, was engaged in the delivery of the WBB project’s impact throughout. Smith and the WBB project co-organised a workshop with the ILO on approaches to assessing the effectiveness of labour provisions in trade and investment agreements (December 2015). As a result of this, Smith was consulted on a review of a major ILO report on labour provisions in trade and investment policy (February 2016), and presented the WBB findings at the launch of the ILO report (December 2016). Smith also wrote a contribution for an ILO handbook [3.3], which is part of the European Commission’s training programme and is referenced in the European Commission’s policy statement in February 2018 [5.4].

The research informed UK government and Labour Party trade policy

In 2018, Smith was invited to join the UK’s Department for International Trade’s (DIT) new Trade and Sustainability Expert Advisory Group (ETAG). ETAG, which brings together business, trade union and NGO representatives, is the key advisory body to government on post-Brexit trade and sustainability issues. Based on his research, the group asked Smith and James Harrison (co-I) to draft a common position on trade and sustainability (September 2018). Non-DIT members of the ETAG subsequently adopted the common position recommendations as the basis for their principles of sustainability in future UK trade policy [5.12]. A key member of the group confirmed that:

[t]his was significant as it means a broad range of trade unions, employers, environmental groups and other civil society groups, are aligned in their priorities for trade to support effective enforcement of workers' rights, promote sustainable development and involve civil society [5.12].

The Labour Party also used the project’s findings to support the conclusions in its “green paper” on trade, which stated that “sustainable development chapters have not been effective” and “binding social clauses are needed” in future trade agreements [5.13]. This was part of the Institute for Public Policy Research’s wider initiative to argue for enhanced protection of labour rights in a future UK-EU trade agreement, which relied on WBB research findings [5.13].

Broadening and deepening MoH’s strategic vision and scope

CSH has provided the intellectual framework to support the museum’s move from:

(i) a focus on English domestic interiors of middle-class Londoners (The Geffrye Museum of English Domestic Interiors); to (ii) a socially, spatially and temporally expansive understanding of home (The Geffrye Museum of the Home); and (iii) its rebranding in 2019 prior to its planned reopening in 2021 as The Museum of the Home following an GBP18,100,000 Heritage Lottery Fund redevelopment project [5.3].

According to a former Curator at the Geffrye Museum, 'The research partnership with Queen Mary [has] had a transformative effect on the museum's understanding and interpretation of home' [5.1]. For the former Head of Collections and Exhibitions, ‘The inclusion of CSH research material in our collections, galleries and programmes has been key to the museum’s long-term strategy of becoming more relevant and more able to meet the needs of diverse local audiences’ [5.2].

Research at CSH has shaped MoH’s more inclusive approach to collections and exhibitions by, as the MoH Director states, ‘interrogating the meaning of home for diverse audiences and challenging how the concept of home is represented in a museum environment’ [5.3]. CSH has expanded the museum’s research capacity and embedded research as a core activity, as evidenced by the museum’s annual reports [5.4, 5.5], staff development (joint doctoral supervision by 15 museum staff), joint publications (Blunt et al., 2013; Blunt and John, 2014; Owens et al., 2016), and research events and activities (including 48 seminars, 12 conferences/workshops, annual lectures and PG study days attended by a total of over 1000 participants). CSH has ‘transformed the museum into an active space for debate and dialogue and a place for new research’ [5.3]. CSH is ‘one of the key pillars of the museum’s work. It demonstrates our capacity for partnership and collaboration. It gives us intellectual authority and gravitas, and raises our standing’ [5.2]. CSH ‘events, seminars and study days [have] allowed the museum’s staff to engage with the most current and challenging research relating to the subject of home’ [5.6].

Research at CSH has been included in the museum’s annual reports since 2011. Reporting that ‘much of our research is carried out through CSH,’ the annual report for 2014-15 states that ‘Our research programme continues to thrive, enhancing our intellectual approach and understanding of our subject area. The research supports the development of our displays and learning and exhibitions programmes in a sustainable way, enabling our staff and visitors to engage with new ideas and findings’ [5.4, p.8]. Under ‘Vision,’ the annual report for 2016-17 states that ‘through CSH … we are both initiating new research and encouraging international knowledge exchange and dissemination’ [5.5, p.3].

Diversifying MoH’s exhibitions and collections strategy into under-represented priority areas

Research at CSH has ‘given the museum the confidence and expertise to develop its practice in new ways’ [5.3]. Five co-curated exhibitions displaying CSH research have addressed under-represented subjects in the museum [5.5, p.7]: Swept under the carpet? Servants in London households, 1600 to 2000 made domestic service visible in the period rooms for the first time (c.43,000 visitors); The Aylesbury Estate as Home (2016; c.15,000 visitors) enabled the museum to address social housing for the first time [3.1]; Inside teenage bedrooms enabled the museum to reflect young people’s cultural practice and stimulated intergenerational dialogue (c.23,200 visitors); Home thoughts: stories of living in London (2017-18; c.18,600 visitors) featured films and displays on domestic religious practice for the first time; and Who once lived in my house? (2016; c.12,500 visitors) provided a new approach to thinking about home and temporality beyond the chronological history of home presented in the period rooms [3.5].

Research methods and findings at CSH inspired new museological approaches at the museum including (i) personal scenarios that put previously hidden histories at the heart of the period rooms [5.1] and informed ‘a new room-set scenario in the refreshed Rooms through Time displays’ ( Swept under the Carpet) [5.3]; (ii) personal testimonies and photographs in all four contemporary exhibitions, directly influencing the museum’s manifesto pledge that ‘personal stories are our lifeblood’ and with a long-term legacy in the new permanent Home Galleries ( Inside Teenage Bedrooms, Home and Religion) [5.3]; and (iii) work with contemporary artists ( The Aylesbury Estate as Home, Globe), described as ‘a very good developmental step for the museum’ [5.2, 5.5; 3.1, 3.4]

The exhibitions reached diverse audiences through the co-creation of school learning resources, performances, talks, tours (including for Hackney deafPLUS), youth, community holiday projects, and private view events. Swept under the carpet and Inside teenage bedrooms ‘provided inspiration for a range of craft-based multi-sensory workshops’ [5.5, p.8]. According to an Assistant Curator at the museum the ‘depth and quality of research produced by the Centre’ enabled many visitors to have ‘an emotional as well as an intellectual response to the material displayed’ [5.6]. One visitor to Swept under the carpet described the exhibition as ‘inventive and insightful and a great way to bring simple, real stories of “hidden” people alive,’ whilst another wrote that ‘it’s really made me think. [I] appreciate the way in which it draws on the current situation and connects it to the past’ [5.7]. In response to the Aylesbury Estate as Home exhibition, an American visitor wrote that ‘Everyone deserves a home. Protect the vulnerable. We’re all in this together. Great exhibit!’ whilst an Australian visitor reflected that it was positive ‘to gain alternative perspectives about life in a housing estate. Very sad about the dispossession and displacement experienced by some residents.’ Another visitor noted that it was ‘such an important exhibition, noting the intersection of design, housing policy, socio-economic change and community politics’ [5.7]. In articles about Inside Teenage Bedrooms, the Huffington Post reported that ‘Teenage bedrooms remind us of the life-changing magic of making a mess,’ whilst, for the Hackney Citizen, ‘[The] exhibition shows how the teenage bedroom is ‘a world of its own’ [5.8].

Research on the ‘Home-work’ programme provided the knowledge and rationale to enhance the collections, specifically to acquire the 18th-century print ‘Moll Handy’, depicting a servant embodied by the tools of her trade. Research on the ‘Home and religion’ programme led to the acquisition of a mezuzah (used to mark the threshold of a Jewish home) from a research participant. CSH co-produced a protocol for depositing material from collaborative research in the collections. Interview transcripts and photographs from CSH research on teenage bedrooms; Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious practice at home; and home, work and migration for Vietnamese people have been deposited in the Documenting Home collection, helping to diversify and deepen the collections and to ‘represent our local audiences’ in perpetuity [5.2, 5.3, 5.9].

Strengthening MoH’s engagement with its locality and enhancing residents’ understanding of home

The ‘Home-work’ AHRC CDA programme included research with Vietnamese residents about home, migration and the city that ‘helped GM build lasting contacts with the Vietnamese community’ close to the museum [5.2]. ‘Home-city-street’ [3.2, 3.6, 5.3, 5.10] has deepened links with the local area through two indoor street parties, artist-led workshops, a workshop at Hackney Archives, and four short films screened at MoH, Hackney Archives, Ali’s kebab shop (belonging to one of the participants) and the crypt of St Peter’s Church. These activities were attended by more than 250 people.

In addition, the app-based audio-walk ‘Home-city stories’ [5.10] was developed in collaboration with MoH and Hackney Archives (available on the izi.travel app) and runs from one to the other around Kingsland Road. ‘Home-city-street’ led MoH to think beyond a ‘confined’ sense of home to ‘vistas out’ into the wider city [5.2] and enhanced ‘our relationship to our local communities’ [5.3]. ‘Home-city stories’ has been evaluated with groups of teachers, students, older residents on the digital project ‘Hello Hackney,’ and museum and archive staff from MoH, Hackney Archives and Hackney Museum. Participants were positive about learning about ‘the lives behind the buildings’, hearing the voices of residents of different ages and ethnicities living in the same neighbourhood, and the importance of being reminded about racism in this area, particularly in the 1980s. For a long-term Hackney resident who works at Hackney Archives and Library, the audio-walk ‘made [them] think about where [they] feel at home’. For a learning manager at Hackney Museum, the audio-walk ‘gave [them] a deeper, more personalised understanding of conflicting views of Dalston as home: for example, one resident talking about Kingsland not feeling safe anymore and another saying the opposite’. The audio-walk made a group of three geography teachers think differently about ‘issues of community and belonging […] different views of people within the community; in-depth thinking; different scales and understandings of home: where you are born or where you live? [and] how areas have changed’ [5.7 & 5.10].