HSDS awarding over £550,000 to unlock innovation in heritage science and conservation research across the UK

The HSDS is thrilled to announce that we are awarding over £550,000 to fund 27 projects across the UK to support researchers, organisations, and community partners in advancing heritage science capabilities through the HSDS Small Grants Programme.

Made possible due to generous funding from the AHRC’s RICHeS programme, the Small Grants programme has been made available in two streams. The first funds projects that seek to enable and enhance access to reference collections from heritage science and conservation research. The second provides an opportunity to work with the Hartree Centre’s software engineering and technical team to develop tailored Virtual Research Environments. 

This programme will go a long way to ensure that vital heritage science datasets are preserved and accessible. Our Director Julian Richards, said: “We’re delighted by the excellent quality and broad range of the applications we’ve received for our small grants programme, covering the full breadth of Heritage Science and Conservation research. They reinforce the number of important data sets that are at risk but which will now be made widely available, as well as the potential of advanced computing facilities to re-use them.”

Some of the key projects to highlight from this funding include: 

Metadata enhancement of Antarctic Historic Sites and Monuments – UK Antarctic Heritage Trust

The Antarctic is warming at five times the global average and increasing temperatures and precipitation are putting buildings and their artefacts at risk. This project seeks to collate, document and preserve the vast datasets collected at these at-risk heritage sites, to make them into a readable, accessible and valuable research resource. 

Port Lockroy (c) UKAHT Jerome Viard

Creating a catalogue of heritage science data held by the National Galleries of Scotland: widening access and making art work for everyone

This project will organise and digitise an important but currently disparate archive of paint samples to allow greater access to the NGS collection for a variety of audiences.  This will create a comprehensive inventory based on guidance developed by the HSDS. This collection includes analyses from paintings of national significance including: Vincent van Gogh’s Head of a Peasant Woman; Johannes Vermeer’s Christ in the House with Martha and Mary; and Titian’s Diana and Actaeon. 

Microfading of ‘Olive Trees’ by van Gogh – National Galleries of Scotland

Newport Medieval Ship Building Information Model – Swansea University

The Newport Medieval Ship project has recovered, documented and conserved the most substantial remains of a medieval ship ever discovered in Britain. This project will enhance that collection by using heritage building information modelling to develop an interactive 3D digital model of the ship’s remains.

Newport Ship Excavation – Copyright Newport Museums and Heritage Service

Virtual Research Environment for automated feature detection of cultural heritage in large-scale lidar data – Historic England 

The identification of cultural heritage features in airborne laser scanning (ALS) data is a labour-intensive process, reliant on a small number of specialists. This project will develop a Virtual Research Environment (VRE)  to support the use of AI for automated feature detection of cultural heritage features within national ALS data.  The proposed VRE will provide a user-friendly platform built with open-source tools and licensing. 

LiDAR Survey – Historic England

For more information on all the projects we are funding, please visit the funded small grants 2026 page.