Projects

The museum sponsors a considerable amount of internal research, with nearly all curators and many other staff running their own projects with a view to academic publication. Active internal projects cover topics such as the nineteenth-century ‘era of assassination’, the impact of arms and armour imports in late medieval England, Japanese armour in the British imagination between 1613 and 1965, the Royal Armouries’ collection of European medieval and Renaissance daggers recovered from the Thames, and the care and conservation of lacquered leather.

The museum also collaborates with and supports the research of others. This includes scientific and technical research, museological studies, and historical studies of the significance of arms and armour. Previous externally-funded collaborative projects include ‘Warhorse: The Archaeology of a Military Revolution?’ (University of Exeter, AHRC Research Grant, AH/S000380/1) and ‘Museum Visitor Experience and the Responsible Use of AI to Communicate Colonial Collections’ (University of Sheffield, AHRC Research Grant, AH/Z505547/1). The museum has hosted two postdoctoral fellowships through its membership of the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities Doctoral Training Partnership: an Innovation Placement (2018) covering infantry tactics of the Second World War, and an Engagement Fellowship (2023) exploring Italian rearmament after 1943. A third, the independently funded Jean Curry Memorial Fellowship (2022), covered the role of firearms in early nineteenth century South Africa and contributed towards a redisplay of the museum’s colonial wars section.

Conferences

Since 2019 the museum has regularly held ‘Weapons in Society’ conferences, targeted at early career researchers and postgraduate researchers working on topics related to arms and armour. In addition, the museum organises themed conferences related to the collection, such as ‘Plunder, Pillage and Spoils of War in History and Law’ (April 2025) in partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University and the Leverhulme Trust.

The museum is the largest dedicated conference, event and exhibition space in Leeds and one of the largest in the North, with facilities for up to 2,500 delegates. It frequently hosts major international collaborations: in 2024 it held the Museum’s Association conference, and jointly hosted the annual congress of the International Committee of Museums and Collections of Arms and Military History (ICOMAM) with the National Army Museum.

Publication

The museum publishes Arms & Armour, a semiannual peer-reviewed journal covering the use, development, decoration and display of arms and armour throughout history. In addition, it publishes monographs and edited collections in partnership with Boydell & Brewer in the Royal Armouries Research Series.

Cover image: © Royal Armouries