Every year, we support over 40 postgraduate research students working at our places and with our collections. They form a vital and valued part of our research programme and provide us with expertise in many areas of our conservation work. Many are PhD students supported and co-supervised by Trust staff over multiple years; others work with us for shorter periods of time on research placements.

We are partners in the South West & Wales Doctoral Training Partnership and Oxford-Open-Cambridge Doctoral Training Partnership, and co-supervise students from a number of other DTPs such as Northern Bridge and Midlands4Cities. We are also partners in the REACH Consortium (Revisiting & Enhancing Approaches to Collections & Heritage) with Royal Museums Greenwich, the National Portrait Gallery, Historic Royal Palaces and the British Film Institute, which has an overarching focus on the construction of diverse identities in British and global contexts, and their representation or invisibility within historic and contemporary heritage practices and debates.

In our land and nature space, we are also partners in CENTA (The Central England NERC Training Alliance) funded by the Natural Environment Research Council.

Examples of our co-supervised doctoral studentships include:

  • Balancing light: daylight characteristics of National Trust properties and implications for collections conservation and visitor experience (University College London)

  • Under-represented historical lives: exploring the impact of contemporary art on heritage and collections policy and practice (Newcastle University / National Portrait Gallery)

  • Imagining Asia at Ham House: Asian (and imitation) Material Culture at Ham House, c. 1637-1698 (Open University)

  • Reading Childhood: Collections, Texts, and Visions of Play in the British Country House c. 1780-1914 (University of Oxford)

  • Measuring resilience and early warning signals of critical slowdown in forest and grassland habitats using time-series satellite data (Cranfield University)

Covering image credit: ©National Trust Images/Arnhel de Serra