The hub at MOLA: a centre for social and environmental value

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Development-led archaeology employs around 5,000 archaeologists, comprises 90% of the UK's archaeological work, and generates over £200m in revenue each year. Studies show that engaging in heritage-based activities contributes to wellbeing; as such, development-led archaeology has the capacity to significantly and positively impact communities throughout the UK. However, wellbeing-led programmes and research into archaeology's positive impacts are generally limited to academia and the third sector. MOLA, development-led archaeology's only IRO, seeks to explore, innovate, and evaluate the potential for development-led archaeology to create positive legacies for communities and their support systems (e.g., community groups, third sector organisations), embedding research into practice and expanding archaeology's impact on a national scale.We seek to commercialise the Hub, a UKRI-research inspired virtual centre exploring how to transform development-led archaeology into Social Value. Creating Social Value, or positive social, environmental, and/or economic legacies, is enshrined in UK planning law and mandated for publicly-funded projects. Archaeology can create authentic, meaningful legacies for communities impacted by development, whilst fulfilling client Social Value KPIs. The Hub seeks to innovate new ways of working and creating positive impact in our sector.The Hub has been piloting approaches to generating Social Value via commercial and community projects. We use research-based, innovative approaches to transform archaeology into meaningful outcomes for communities and places (e.g., using archaeology to foster community cohesion, support wellbeing, meet the needs of new audiences, etc.). We believe our approach is the best solution because our practice is based on extensive UKRI-funded research, which has taken place outside of various vested interests.MOLA's Hub and its practices are, and will be, underpinned by research, including collaborations with academics, researchers, third sector organisations, community and clients to design, implement, and evaluate the impact that our outcomes-led programmes can make. A community investments stream will fund publicly-designed projects that explore new ways that community members harness archaeology for creating local, positive impacts. Hub projects which evidence positive impacts will be integrated into normal work practice, infusing traditional programmes with novel strategies to produce outcomes beneficial to communities, third sector and research organisations, and clients.