Our experts undertake innovative research that generates impact and effect on culture, politics and society by regularly engaging with the media, museums, policy makers, think tanks and the public.
Our approach to historical research has long encompassed activities that create impact and public engagement. We sustain our commitment to working beyond the academic world to influence public debates, understanding and policy. In these activities, we are supported at QMUL by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Centre for Public Engagement.
At the School of History, we sustain our commitment to working beyond the academic world to influence public debate, understanding and policy. In these activities, we are supported at QMUL by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Centre for Public Engagement.
Our collaborations
Our collaborations are forged through funded doctoral research and the work of our Research Centres. We have fostered connections with libraries, museums and government departments through seven AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Awards. Our partners are the British Library, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Museum of the Home (formerly, the Geffrye Museum), the Imperial War Museums, the Institut Français, the Museum of London, the National Maritime Museum and the V&A.
Reaching a broader audience
We have a strong tradition of producing research-based books for a general audience, exemplified by recent works like Thomas Asbridge’s The Greatest Knight, Colin Jones’s Versailles, Daniel Lee’s The SS Officer’s Armchair. Many books by Queen Mary historians have reached international audiences, with translations into 11 languages since 2014.
Our research has also led to collaborations with archives and museums. For instance, Asbridge has worked with the National Archives and the Morgan Library, while Kate Lowe co-curated exhibitions in Lisbon and Porto. Daniel Todman has advised the Imperial War Museum.
Our historians frequently appear on mainstream radio and television, contributing to major BBC programs and radio series, including Thomas Dixon’s History of Friendship. Mark Glancy consulted on the documentary Becoming Cary Grant (2017).
We offer insights on contemporary issues related to conflict, culture, and politics, with figures like Lord Peter Hennessy advising government bodies. Martyn Frampton and Robert Saunders provide expertise on extremism and British politics through their writing and commentary.
We engage the public with four annual lectures and two biennial lectures, available on our School’s YouTube channel and websites.
Kate Lowe’s long career as an historian of Renaissance Europe has led her to collaborate with many major international libraries and museums. Her recent research on contacts between Italy and Portugal as two of the most important Renaissance states, and on the history of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe, produced a historic find in art history. This was the discovery of a sixteenth-century painting of a late Renaissance street thought to have been part of the art collection of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. With her collaborator, Annemarie Jordan Gschwend, Lowe identified the painting as an illustration of the Rua Nova dos Mercadores, a vibrant street of Renaissance Lisbon. Lowe used her research expertise, and this painting, as the basis of a major and very successful museum exhibition, The Global City. Lisbon in the Renaissance, on display at Portugal’s National Museum in 2017. Lowe’s research has transformed the presentation and understanding of Lisbon’s history as a global city in the Renaissance.
The Centre for the History of the Emotions has continued its mission to deepen and enhance understandings of emotions, health and history by achieving research impact in the contexts of UK schools, work and healthcare. It has done so most recently with the support of the Wellcome Trust for its project ‘Living with Feeling: Emotional Health in History, Philosophy, and Experience’. Two of the project’s researchers, Sarah Chaney and Thomas Dixon, have used their expertise in different areas of society. Chaney has collaborated with the Royal College of Nursing to develop an exhibition at the RCN’s London headquarters. Who Cares? A History of Emotions in Nursing promoted reflections on its theme and also led to the formation of new relationships between the RCN, nursing Chief Executives and care home managers. Dixon has used his reputation as a leading public expert on the history of emotions to raise awareness of how historical representations of them affect contemporary attitudes. He has also worked with a large multi-academy trust in the south of England to create and trial the Developing Emotions programme for Year 3 and Year 5 pupils. It seeks to teach children how to discuss and represent emotions and has been welcomed by teachers. The extension of the programme to more schools is now being discussed.
Thomas Asbridge has used his expertise as a historian of the Crusades and the life of the medieval knight and counsellor to kings, William Marshal, to enhance public awareness and understanding of the medieval world. He has created a network of secondary school teachers across the UK to help them use recent academic research on Crusades history to improve the education of GCSE and A-level students. He has also drawn on his books to write and present major BBC television documentaries and advise exhibitions. Asbridge’s research on William Marshal was the inspiration for a very successful exhibition in 2017 held at the Collection Museum in Lincoln and at Lincoln Castle. Battles & Dynasties brought items from national and international libraries and museums (including the Domesday Book, displayed out of London for the first time in modern history). Asbridge advised the curators of the exhibition, which attracted over 80,000 visitors.
Martyn Frampton’s historical interests in extremism and terrorism and his work with the think tank Policy Exchange has produced three, substantive policy reports on matters of contemporary significance to public life. The first, Unsettled Belonging (2016), was based on the largest commissioned survey of British Muslim opinion on life in the UK. The second, The New Netwar: Countering Extremism Online (2017), provided a comprehensive examination of the challenge posed by online extremism. It too called on significant polling evidence to study radicalisation and how to respond to it. The third, On Islamophobia: The Problem of Definition (2019), considered the concept of Islamophobia to question the apparent pervasiveness of anti-Muslim hatred in Britain and offer recommendations on how to counteract anti-Muslim prejudice. Each report received widespread coverage in the British media and inside and outside of Parliament. Frampton has also given testimony to Parliamentary and Whitehall groups.