Awarded Projects

Bursaries Awarded 2026

Inherent Vice CIC 

We hope to use the grant to attend intermediate training in book conservation and repair. This will add to and strengthen our collective skills when delivering facilitated community repair workshops. These workshops will exist in a series which is designed to support the LGBTQIA+ community in preserving their own material heritage through sessions led by conservation and community archiving experts. A key aim is to share conservation knowledge in an accessible and supportive way, addressing the gap between professional conservation practice and community-led care of objects. 

“There is a growing movement amongst the LGBTQIA+ community to document and preserve their histories, stories, and material culture in non-institutional settings and on their own terms. The bursary will strengthen Inherent Vice’s ability to support LGBTQIA+ communities in doing this through facilitated preservation workshops.” Shoun Obana, Inherent Vice CIC  

Neurokind Inclusion CIC

I will use the bursary to develop specialist skills in inclusive community heritage, combining trauma‑informed practice with training in accessible interpretation and community‑led storytelling. This learning will help me understand how to design heritage activities that are welcoming, safe, and meaningful for neurodivergent people. Through mentoring and practical workshops, I will build confidence in adapting heritage content, supporting participants with diverse needs, and creating resources that improve accessibility. The outcomes will include new inclusive approaches for my work at Neurokind Inclusion CIC, stronger partnerships with local heritage organisations, and increased opportunities for neurodivergent people to engage with heritage in ways that feel affirming and empowering. This training will strengthen my ability to support others and widen participation across the sector. 

Emma Snell, Founding Director, Neurokind Careers and Inclusion CIC 

Elevate24

Elevate24 C.I.C. has been awarded a Skills Bursary to formalise their expertise in preserving the “living heritage” of the Southwest. This project focuses on upskilling their leadership in professional oral history techniques and digital archival standards. By bridging the gap between grassroots advocacy and the formal heritage sector, Elevate24 will ensure that the profound narratives of the Windrush generation and the modern-day resilience of neurodiverse youth are not just project notes, but permanent additions to archives in the UK.

“This bursary marks a transformative shift for Elevate24. It moves us from acting as reactive supporters to becoming skilled guardians of our community’s history. By documenting these overlooked voices to a professional standard, we are ensuring that the heritage of the Southwest diaspora is validated, protected, and woven into the national story for future generations.” – Joseph Adegoke, Project Director, Elevate24 C.I.C.

Lincoln Archaeology Group

This award will enable Lincoln Archaeology Group to move forward with their project to engage and inform the local community of their village’s heritage and provide new information about its history and development. It will provide opportunities for people to develop new skills in: historical research, archaeological recording, report writing, public engagement, and archaeological fieldwork skills.

Alyona Shmakova

“I am honoured to have been awarded this bursary, which funds a five-month tailored mentoring programme in traditional dance curating with the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland (TDFS), under the direction of its curator, Iliyana Nedkova. I hope to acquire the curatorial competencies necessary to bring historically underrepresented narratives to broader audiences through structured one-to-one mentoring and active contribution to TDFS activities, including festivals, community projects, and public dance evenings. In addition, the project will enable me to translate my master’s research into a publicly accessible online display hosted by TDFS.”

“The anticipated impact includes the creation of a new open-access heritage resource in dance history for the sector, enhanced interpretation of archival holdings at the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, and a contribution to bridging the gap between dance archives and the communities who keep traditional dance alive today. This bursary provides me with the confidence and practical curatorial skill set to transition from academic researcher to community heritage practitioner. I am also grateful for the opportunity to share the stories of women in Scotland’s dance history with a broader audience, while also strengthening the dialogue between past and present within the traditional dance sector.”

Marlborough Theatre Productions

Queer Heritage South is a digital community archive that celebrates and promotes the rich cultural life of LGBTQIA+ people in Brighton & Hove. The archive collects, preserves, and brings to life underrepresented histories, helping to build a more inclusive and diverse record of LGBTQIA+ experiences in the city. Through its online platform, community members can easily explore the archive and contribute their own materials. The Spaces, Places and Belonging bursary will support the continued development of the archive by enabling Queer Heritage South to undertake specialist copyright training. Copyright is a crucial aspect of digital archiving, particularly when working with community-contributed materials. This training will ensure that the archive can responsibly preserve and share histories while remaining compliant with copyright legislation.

“I am thrilled to receive this Spaces, Places and Belonging bursary. By strengthening our knowledge and confidence around copyright, the bursary will help safeguard the long-term sustainability of the Queer Heritage South community archive. It will empower us to support contributors and expand our collections, allowing us to continue amplifying LGBTQIA+ voices and histories in Brighton & Hove.” – Rowan Rush-Morgan, Community Archivist, Queer Heritage South

Jade Walton

“I am truly grateful to have been awarded a bursary from The National Archives to support my participation in the Beyond the Raid course, delivered by DigVentures in partnership with Durham University. This opportunity is particularly meaningful to me, as it will allow me to engage more deeply with the archaeology of conflict, a subject I am deeply passionate about, while developing both my practical and critical skills in a supportive and collaborative environment.”

“Access to opportunities like this can be transformative, and support from the Community Hub is instrumental in making this possible. I look forward not only to learning from the course, but to carrying these insights forward into my future work and sharing them with others.”

Lee Karen Stow

Photographer & Visual Researcher Dr Lee Karen Stow will use her bursary to undertake shadow training with archivists at local and national archives. This will help her to develop the community-engagement heritage project ‘Women on the Line’ by artists from the Freedom Women Collective (www.freedomwomencollective.com). Her aim is to learn how to better research and process visual collections, specifically photographs.

Lee says: “I look forward to developing an archival way of thinking about photographs held in personal, local and national collections to benefit our project. Specifically, I would like to learn how to better connect past and present voices of women to help illuminate under-explored and under-represented visual histories and experiences of 20th Century women factory workers.”

Sheffield Feminist Archive

The Spaces, Places and Belonging Community Hub Bursary scheme will empower volunteers at Sheffield Feminist Archive to learn the basics of web design and sustain the archive as a digitally literate collective. The gained skills will enable them to redesign their website, improve the accessibility of their work, and get their ‘Women in Lockdown’ digital archive back online as a long-term record of local women and feminists’ experiences of the coronavirus pandemic.

Lucy Brownson, Archivist and Co-organiser, says: “As an independent, volunteer-led community archive, Sheffield Feminist Archive is delighted to be a recipient of this Bursary scheme. With this support, we hope to keep documenting grassroots feminism across Sheffield and South Yorkshire in the longer term.”

Perry Wood Primary School

This bursary will help fund The ‘Sharing Our Stories’ project which aims to build sustainable heritage and archiving skills across the Griffin Schools Trust, of which Perry Wood is a part of. The project team hope to train and support local champions to create, curate, and maintain school archives that actively engage pupils and communities. The grant will enable the trust to transform a one-off celebratory event from one school, into a lasting, trust-wide model for community heritage, strengthening pupil identity and belonging, deepening community connections, and inspiring pupils to ensure local histories are preserved and shared for future generations. The project directly stems from the success of Perry Wood Primary School’s 75th anniversary celebrations, which revealed strong community appetite for preserving school heritage. It also demonstrated the educational and social value of engaging pupils, families, and alumni in sharing their collective history.

Scott Pileckas

Colonel Scott L. Pileckas is an independent community heritage practitioner and digital archivist based between the USA and Northamptonshire. With a lifelong background in leathercraft, archival practice, community-led heritage and civic work in law enforcement, emergency services, and digital inclusion, Scott has worked across museums, grassroots initiatives, and digital preservation platforms to safeguard both tangible and digital cultural heritage. This bursary will be used to expand his formal training in traditional leathercraft and heritage skills, whilst also enabling him to document endangered artisanal techniques for future generations.