Consensus or collision? A site-specific approach to integrating methodologies for the historic environment

英国的历史环境被广泛认为是一项重要的国家经济和文化资源。这一资源既高度多样化，又受到各种往往相互交织的压力的影响。虽然在过去的一个世纪里，我们在理解、保护和展示历史环境的各个方面取得了巨大的进步，但研究往往是非常分散的，通常集中在对一种类型或地点的历史环境的单一挑战上。为了在21世纪更有效地管理这一重要资源，需要改进和真正的跨学科研究工作。这种改进研究的一个关键障碍是，具有不同艺术、人文、社会科学和科学领域背景的工作人员使用了过多的不同方法。我们的研究集群旨在提供一种有效的、富有成效的、切实的和富有想象力的方式，将具有广泛的与历史环境研究和管理相关的方法经验的专家聚集在一起，以创造新的意识并促进协调未来研究合作的发展。这些目标将通过一系列由核心参与者参加的发展会议来实现，会议由一名合格的集群研究助理组织，该助理将与PI和Co-I一起负责指导整个研究集群的运作。我们已经确定并参与了从同步辐射应用到摄影等领域的17个核心参与者。2006年12月在牛津举行的首次会议，主题是“引入研究历史环境的方法；将汇集20位来自不同领域的专家参与者，如微生物学、基于计算机的考古学、口述历史、策展、社会经济研究和专业摄影，分享有关已建立的、新的和潜在的方法的信息。在这次会议之后，将编制一系列关于不同方法的简要说明。第二次会议将于2007年4月在伯斯勒姆举行，主题为“行动中的方法：解决伯斯勒姆历史环境问题”，会议将由来自WS Atkins的Janet Miller联合主办，与会者将面临伯斯勒姆历史环境再生的问题。参加者将分成小组，详细讨论历史环境的方方面面，以及如何采用一系列方法来研究、保存、加强和推广这些资源。在这次会议之后，与会者将与当地利益团体讨论，为当地制定具体的产出。最后一次会议将于2007年6月在牛津举行，重点是“共同推进方法”。会议将采用研讨会的形式，由几组参与者制作拨款提案草案（基于伯斯勒姆会议或伯斯勒姆会议提出的主题和问题），并向来自资助机构和历史环境相关机构的受邀听众展示。

The UK's historic environment has been widely recognised as an important national economic and cultural resource. This resource is both highly diverse and affected by a wide range of, often intertwined, pressures. Whilst huge progress has been made over the past century in understanding, conserving and presenting various aspects of our historic environment, studies have tended to be very fragmented and usually focused on a single challenge to one type or location of historical environment. In order to manage this important resource more effectively over the 21st century, improved and genuine cross-disciplinary research effort is needed. One key barrier to such improved research is the plethora of different methods utilised by workers with backgrounds in different areas of arts, humanities, social sciences and sciences. Our research cluster aims to provide an effective, productive, tangible and imaginative way of bringing together experts with a wide range of methodological experience relevant to the study and management of the historic environment in order to create new awareness and facilitate development of co-ordinated future research collaborations. These aims will be met through a developmental sequence of meetings involving core participants, organised by a well-qualified cluster research assistant who, with the PI and Co-I will be responsible for steering the whole research cluster over the year of its operation. We have already identified and involved 17 core participants in fields ranging from synchrotron radiation applications to photography. An initial meeting in Oxford in December 2006 on 'Introducing methods for studying the historical environment; will bring together 20 expert participants from fields as diverse as microbiology, computing based-archaeology, oral history, curatorship, socio-economic studies and professional photography to share information on established, new and potential methods. This meeting will be followed up by the production of a series of briefing notes on different methods. A second meeting in Burslem in April 2007 on 'Methods in action: addressing issues of Burslem's historic environment' will be hosted in association with Janet Miller from WS Atkins and will confront participants with the problems of regenerating Burslem's historic environment. Participants will split into small groups to consider in detail small aspects of the historic environment and how a range of methods could be deployed to study, conserve, enhance and market the resource. This meeting will be followed by the production of a tangible output, determined by the participants at the meeting in discussion with local interest groups, for the local area. The final meeting will be held in Oxford in June 2007 to focus on 'Advancing methods together'. The meeting will have a workshop format with small groups of participants producing draft grant proposals (based on either Burslem or themes and issues raised at the Burslem meeting) and presenting them to an invited audience from grant-giving bodies and agencies involved in the historic environment.