The Arts and Humanities Research Council was established in April 2005 as successor to the Arts and Humanities Research Board and is a Britishresearch council; non-departmental public body that provides approximately £102 million from the government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from languages and law, archaeology and English literature to design and creative and performing arts. In any one year, the AHRC makes approximately 700 research awards and around 1,350 postgraduate awards. Postgraduate funding is organised through Doctoral Training Partnerships in 10 consortia that bring together a total of 72 higher education institutions throughout the UK. Awards are made after a rigorous peer review process, to ensure that only applications of the highest quality are funded.
The Stonehenge Riverside Project is a major five year AHRC-funded archaeological research study interested in the development of the Stonehenge landscape in Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain. In particular, the project is interested in the relationship between the stones and surrounding monuments and features including; The River Avon, Durrington Walls, the Cursus, the Avenue, Woodhenge, burial mounds, and nearby standing stones. In August 2009 the project discovered a new stone circle, which was named Bluestonehenge by the research team, about one mile away from Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. The project is run by a consortium of university teams. It is directed by Prof. Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield University, with co-directors Dr Josh Pollard, Prof. Julian Thomas, Dr Kate Welham and Dr Colin Richards.
Medieval Soldier Database
Researchers at the University of Reading and University of Southampton analysed historic sources such as muster rolls records in the National Archives at Kew and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. The resulting Medieval Soldier online database was launched in 2009 which enables people to search for soldiers by surname, rank or year of service. The online database contains 250,000 service records of soldiers who saw active duty in the latter phases of the Hundred Years' War.
An AHRC research grant enabled academics from the University of Hertfordshire, University of Sheffield and the Open University to double in size the Old Bailey trial proceedings available to view on the Old Bailey Proceedings Online website and provide access to the largest single source of searchable information about ordinary British lives and behaviour ever published. The Old Bailey Proceedings Online makes available a fully searchable, digitised collection of all surviving editions of the Old Bailey Proceedings from 1674 to 1913, and of the Ordinary of Newgate's Accounts, 1679 to 1772. It allows access to over 197,000 trials and biographical details of approximately 2,500 men and women executed at Tyburn.
History
In 2005 the AHRC replaced the Arts and Humanities Research Board, founded in 1998.
Publications
The AHRC publish reviews and reports on arts and humanities subjects, as well as corporate publications. Research news and findings are communicated in website features, press releases, and multimedia content such as podcasts. Between 2005 and 2010, the AHRC published a magazine called Podium twice a year, which contained news and case studies based on research that they have funded.
Structure
The AHRC is one of seven research councils in the UK. Professor Andrew S Thompson is serving as Interim Chief Executive of the AHRC, from December 2015. The previous CE of the AHRC was Professor Rick Rylance who took up the post on 1 September 2009, and was re-appointed in September 2013 to serve until August 2017. The current Council Chair is Sir Drummond Bone. Sir Alan Wilson stepped down in December 2013.
