Swarm Intelligence: insects, humans and information on the move

这一后续资金申请与《蝗虫战争：1940-1945年反蝗虫研究中心的科学、政治、文化和合作》有关，这是AHRC ECR 2016-17年度文化科学发展奖。在过去的一年里，该团队的四名研究人员在审查大英帝国反蝗虫研究中心的工作时，在历史、昆虫学、生态学和艺术之间产生了新的对话。反蝗虫研究中心是一个非凡的组织，试图在整个20世纪对抗人类最古老的威胁之一。目前的后续资金申请是为了发展我们与新的非学术受众的接触，并以比最初设想的更雄心勃勃和更具创造性的方式。ALRC的记录存放在自然历史博物馆位于伦敦西南部的非现场商店，是独一无二的，基本上没有编目，在我们的项目开始之前，基本上没有被探索过。与如此丰富的档案材料密切接触的时间为合作开辟了令人兴奋的可能性，这在该项目的构想中是无法预料的。目前的申请寻求资金，以支持两个合作机会，这两个机会都是与相关利益攸关方进行的预备讨论的主题。第一个是与罗马的联合国粮食及农业组织，其‘蝗虫小组’是当代的ALRC(和今天的直接继任者)；在这里，我们寻求资金支持与这个国际政策组织的两个知识交流研讨会。第二个合作是与加的夫的威尔士国家博物馆合作，ALRC收集了8万个蝗虫标本，无意中与伦敦的文献材料分开；在这里，我们寻求资金在加的夫博物馆开发一个公共装置，展示跨学科工作的复杂性，重新组合档案的分解元素的难题，以及ALRC自己在前数字时代收集和分类复杂信息的努力。虽然我们寻求支持的活动涉及不同的公众，但都旨在将这个隐藏的档案的内容和我们对它的研究反思带到更广泛的视野中。

This follow-on funding application is connected to The War of the Locust: science, politics, culture and collaboration in the Anti-Locust Research Centre, 1940-45, an AHRC Science in Culture ECR Developmental Award for 2016-17. Over the past year the team's four Investigators have generated new dialogues between history, entomology, ecology and art in examining the work of the British Empire's 'Anti-Locust Research Centre': a remarkable organisation that sought, across the twentieth-century, to counter one of mankind's oldest threats. The current follow-on funding application is to develop our engagement with new non-academic audiences and in more ambitious and creative ways than originally conceived. The records of the ALRC, housed in the Natural History Museum's offsite store in south west London, are unique, substantially uncatalogued, and prior to the commencement of our project were essentially unexplored. The time spent engaging closely with such a rich body of archival material has opened up exciting possibilities for collaboration which could not have been anticipated at the project's conception. The current application seeks funding to support two opportunities for collaboration, both of which have been the subject of preparatory discussion with relevant stakeholders. The first is with the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (UNFAO) in Rome, whose 'Locust Group' is the contemporary equivalent (and the direct successor) of the ALRC today; here we seek funds to support two knowledge exchange seminars with this international policy organisation. The second collaboration is with the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, home to 80,000 locust specimens collected by the ALRC and unintentionally separated from the documentary material in London; here, we seek funds to develop a public installation in the Cardiff Museum which will present the complexities of interdisciplinary work, the puzzle of reassembling the disaggregated elements of this archive, and the ALRC's own efforts to gather and sort complex information in the pre-digital age. While the activities for which we seek support engage with different publics, all aim to bring the contents of this hidden archive, and our research reflections upon it, into wider view.