Grants awarded 2025
University of Liverpool
This Discover Creative Careers grant will support a talk with Key Stage 3 pupils and our University Chancellor, Wendy Beetlestone, using items from our collections to explore the links of Banastre Tarleton, an 18th-century Liverpool MP, to transatlantic slavery and its modern local legacies. Funding will also facilitate dedicated handling and research sessions for A-Level students, helping to showcase careers in archives and heritage to marginalised young people.
Joanne Fitton, Deputy Director of Libraries, Museums and Galleries and the University of Liverpool, said: ‘We are delighted to have this opportunity to develop new access routes to collections and careers for young people in our region.’
Berwick Record Office
The ‘Changing Face of Berwick’ project will engage students with Berwick Archives’ rich photographic collections, introducing them to new skills and career opportunities. Students will find out how images are cared for, digitised and used for public engagement, linking the past with the present and the future.
Linda Bankier, Berwick Archivist for Northumberland Archives, said: ‘We are delighted to receive this grant and work with a local school to help students find out about career opportunities in archives whilst exploring our extensive photographic collections of the area.’
MayDay Rooms
MayDay Rooms Archive will be delivering three archival workshops to students in the City of London area. The workshops will provide an introduction their key collections, highlighting environmental campaigns, anti-racist struggles, student-led movements and experimental art-making.
The team said: ‘Through creative engagement, we hope to inspire students to think about what matters most to them and be instigators of the changes they want to see in the world.’
Royal Engineers Museum
This Discover Creative Careers grant will enable the Royal Engineers Museum to give the first-ever school access to their unique Berlin Wall archives. The initiative will enable around 90 Year 10 students from Medway to explore original Cold War records, supporting their GCSE History studies and inspiring future learning and careers.
Amber Coulstock, Museum Learning Manager, said: ‘We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to share our archives with local students and showcase the incredible stories they hold.’
The Story – Durham Archives
The Story will be using their grant to invite students into their archives for a ‘behind-the-shelves’ look at their collections, hands-on activities, and the opportunity to quiz members of the archives and collections team on their jobs and career journeys.
The team said: ‘We are incredibly excited that we have been chosen to take part in the Discover! Creative Careers! programme, which will help The Story inspire secondary school students in County Durham to consider careers in archives by breaking stereotypes of roles in the heritage sector.’
Royal Holloway, University of London
This Discover Creative Careers grant will support a project working with Key Stage 3 pupils from a local school to develop curriculum-relevant content inspired by suffrage-related sources within the university’s archive collections.
The team said: ‘Royal Holloway is delighted to receive funding from the Discover Creative Careers grant. Through this project, students will have the opportunity to engage directly with original archival material, deepening their understanding of the suffrage movement while gaining insight into creative and heritage sector careers.’
Inspire – Nottinghamshire Archives
With this Discover Creative Careers grant, Nottinghamshire Archives – known as Inspire – will deliver a programme introducing students to the science and technology behind conservation, digitisation, and digital engagement in archives. Through school assemblies and hands-on workshops using collections like Raleigh and Jardines, students will explore careers in conservation, digital preservation, and heritage technology.
Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Education Trust
Tania Stein, Young People and Schools Engagement Officer, said: ‘We are so excited to be working with Discover Creative Careers to offer students at a Manchester school the chance to explore archives at the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre. Students will get the chance to learn about local Global Majority histories, whilst also exploring the different work and roles at a specialist archive.’