Global heritage is humanity’s cultural and natural legacy from the past, our present, and what we pass on to future generations. Global heritage research has been an integral part of the NTU community since the early 1990s. Focusing on developing smart and sustainable management systems to preserve our cultural heritage, our progressive research approaches prepare national and international heritage sites for future challenges through sustainable and evidence-based research innovation. We study historic fabric, structures, and communities, and uncover new knowledge through research projects, high-profile international collaborations, and world-leading funded projects.
Science and technology are always at the heart of our research in heritage sciences, management, and development, enabling us to collaborate with an extensive network of governments, museums, charities, heritage organisations, and other universities and cultural institutions. NTU researchers advise several foreign governments on preservation policies, urban planning, and recording of heritage environments in places like Ireland, Egypt, and most recently Iraq.
This focus and determination allows us to impact and shape the future vision, technologies, and policies of culture and heritage globally, and to broaden the scope of research within the subject areas of art, architecture, design, science, and history. We are leading the way in preserving humanity’s cultural and natural impact for future generations.
Key areas of focus
- The physical sciences, computing and engineering
- Architecture, urban planning and history
- Heritage management and development
- Literature and the arts
- Science and engineering
- Social sciences and cultural economics.
Queen's Anniversary Prize 2021
Nottingham Trent University has been awarded the highest national honour for cultural heritage science research.
Associated Research Centres and Groups
Centre for Architecture, Urbanism and Global Heritage
Focusing on the investigation of human aspects of architecture, urban heritage, and the built environment within the ever-changing urban and social structures of contemporary cities.
Centre for Research in History, Heritage and Memory Studies
The Centre connects NTU researchers and projects in policy, religion, conflict, race, gender, memory & welfare through varied methodologies & knowledge exchange
Centre for Research in Literature Linguistics and Culture
The Centre for Research in Literature, Linguistics and Culture is a multi- and interdisciplinary hub that promotes research innovation across Literary Studies, Linguistics, and Media, Film and TV Studies.
Centre for International Business Strategy and Decisions
The Centre for IBSD investigates research phenomena of international importance for individuals, groups, organisations, cultures, and nations. Global challenges and opportunities ask for interdisciplinary international collaborations to find solutions regarding global sustainability (from nutrition to microfinance), sustainable cultures (migration, cultural adaptation, decision-making), multinational corporate strategies and transnational entrepreneurship decisions. Our Centre explores new avenues with a diverse set of theories and methods (qualitative, quantitative, and mixed) to identify configurations and reconfigurations in international business, global sustainability and geo-political settings.
Global Cultures of Textiles and Dress
The GCTD Group aims to promote research in textiles and dress that addresses a wide range of critical and practice-based themes.
Imaging and Sensing for Archaeology, Art History and Conservation (ISAAC)
Find out how NTU develops a non-invasive imaging and spectroscopic techniques for art conservation, archaeology and art history.
Vision-based Structural Health Monitoring
Monitoring deformations and movements of structures is an essential tool for asset management and condition monitoring. Our research is developing the latest cutting-edge, low-cost technologies to push the field forward.
Research projects
Discover research projects our academics are working on under the theme of Global Heritage.
Re:store
Researchers at NTU are developing new methods to restore and protect cultural heritage sites, artefacts and artworks across the globe.
Re:search Re:imagined
To us, research is about more than writing papers and proposing new ideas. By daring to think differently, we’re disrupting the research landscape and finding the answers to the questions that really matter.