The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has announced that continued funding has been agreed for the five First World War Engagement Centres set up as part of the nation’s commemoration of the centenary of the conflict.

This new funding, which will total £2million over the next three years, underlines an ongoing partnership between the AHRC and Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). 

Since their establishment in 2014 the five Engagement Centres, each linked to a consortium of Universities, have collaborated with hundreds of community groups across the country and provided support to over 150 HLF-funded community projects linked to the centenary. Continued AHRC funding means the Centres will be able to support academic researchers to work with an even greater range of community groups and HLF-funded projects in the next three years.

The Voices of War and Peace Engagement Centre is at University of Birmingham and is a joint initiative across the Midlands with Birmingham City University, University of Wolverhampton and University of Worcester, and further afield with Cardiff University, University of Durham, Manchester Metropolitan University and Newcastle University. The others university centres include:

The funding just announced will not only support the continuation of the Centres, but also a number of linked supplementary activities. These include a new cluster of almost 30 community/academic co-produced research projects on the War that will start this year following a call issued by the five Centres.