New UKRI national facility for heritage science and conservation at the Uni of Bristol
The University of Bristol has received a £1 million grant from the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to establish a new Centre for Chemical Characterisation in Heritage Sciences – an initiative that will span Arts, Chemistry and Earth Sciences.
The Bristol centre will be part of a network of projects announced as UKRI/AHRC launches its Research Infrastructure for Conservation and Heritage Science (RICHeS) programme. The centre shares funding from the first tranche of a major £80 million research and innovation investment that will support the latest technology and scientific instrumentation to safeguard heritage for future generations and will boost the UK’s heritage economy.
The University of Bristol has a long history of pioneering mass spectrometric methodologies for molecular and isotope analyses in the heritage sciences.
Facilities included under the centre umbrella include an ultra-compact, high-precision radiocarbon accelerator. The BRAMS radiocarbon dating facility was established by the School of Chemistry in 2016 and housed in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology. This has led to major methodological developments, including the capability to radiocarbon date individual preserved fatty acids from food residues extracted from archaeological pottery.
The Centre lead from the University of Bristol, Dr Lucy Cramp, said: “The £1 million award to set up the new centre will enhance the analytical capabilities at the University of Bristol to establish a world-leading National facility that will welcome a diversity of research and researchers from across the heritage sector. New analytical instrumentation and laboratories will enable enhanced characterisation and radiocarbon dating of organic compounds in complex mixture.”
From 2026 the university will offer UK researchers access to a facility for single- and multi-molecular and isotope mass spectrometry approaches that can be applied to heritage materials to further understand their nature, composition, origins and age.
Dr Jim Williams, a project partner from Historic England, added: “There is a major demand for access to these approaches to characterise, provenance and date organic materials, and this new infrastructure will open-up access to advanced instrumentation that does not exist together elsewhere. The expertise within the Centre team will support the development of the highest quality projects and research excellence, drawing in the research potential from developer-funded archaeology and the wider heritage sector beyond academia.”
AHRC Executive Chair, Professor Christopher Smith said: “The UK has a rich and unparalleled cultural heritage and is a global leader in the science of heritage conservation. By investing in heritage science, we are not only unleashing new understanding about our cultural assets but boosting a world-leading heritage economy that will benefit us all. Using the latest technology and scientific equipment, this programme will support access to heritage collections, grow the UK’s heritage economy and drive technological innovation in areas such as material science. With 31 sites across all four devolved administrations and a network of 117 partners in three continents, RICHeS is UKRI’s largest distributed infrastructure and an undisputed world-first. It is an example of how AHRC works at the heart of UKRI to drive interdisciplinary science which benefits citizens, society and the economy.”
