Oral History Collective

The Collective operates on the basis of project funding and continues to ensure Newcastle's international reputation as a leading provider of high quality oral history research and teaching.

The Oral History Collective at Newcastle University was launched in January 2018 with a four-year University strategic investment grant. Since then we operate on a funded project basis through winning competitive bids and directly contracted work.

We continue to collaborate across diverse academic disciplines on an equitable basis, from creative arts to medicine, and in partnership with researchers from across the world, as well as history groups and community historians. Our research and teaching explores the role of oral history in communicating the past in the present. The Collective's blog The Lug provides an online space to share news, events and reflections on our current research and teaching.

We also continue to operate a reading group, drop-ins and produce a newsletter and workshops.

 

Green Corridors Funding Success

The Oral History Collective is part of a new £3m AHRC-funded project connecting communities with nature, history, and culture to boost biodiversity and wellbeing across the North East, including research on the Tyne Derwent Way.

The Keelmen's Hospital & Remembering the Past

A £4.6m National Heritage Lottery Fund grant to convert the Hospital into supported living for older people has been awarded. 

Accessing the Wellbeing Commons

A successful funding bid has resulted in a Wellcome Trust Career Development Award for the Accessing the Wellbeing Commons Project based in History at Newcastle University.

Byker Community Archive: Funding Boost

In 2025, the Byker Community Archive project received a funding boost of over £275,000. With £240,186 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and £36,488 match-funding from Karbon Homes.

Rebalancing the Global Story of HIV Through Oral History

Wendy Rickard, a member of the Oral History Collective, has secured a prestigious Daphne Jackson Fellowship, for her project, ‘Disrupted Narratives, Exposed Voices: A Global Analysis of HIV Oral History and its Public Dissemination’.

Oral Histories of Care: Caring Communities

Caring Communities: Rethinking Children’s Social Care, 1800–present is a seven-year project (UKRI) led by Dr Claudia Soares. It seeks to transform our understanding of care through oral histories, archival research, and creative methods.

Introducing Oral History into Iraqi Higher Education Research and Teaching

Funded by the British Academy, Professors Alaa Alameri and Graham Smith co-authored Iraq’s first Arabic oral history guide, launching a new university module through a partnership between Mustansiriyah and Newcastle University.

Environmental Oral History

Building on the Living Deltas Hub, Graham Smith and partners are expanding intergenerational oral history work to inform ageing and environmental policy in Africa and South Asia.

AHRC-Funded PhD: A History of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)

Ally Keane, a Stage 4 PhD student at Newcastle University, holds an AHRC Northern Bridge Consortium Doctoral Award for her research into Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), 1950 – Present

AHRC-Funded PhD: Finding the Child-Patient Experience at Stannington Sanatorium

Ryan Fallon, a Stage 3 PhD student at Newcastle University, holds an AHRC Northern Bridge Consortium Doctoral Award for his research into the experiences of child patients at Northumberland’s Stannington Sanatorium

AHRC-Funded PhD: Hospital Volunteering in the ‘far North’ of England, 1979-1997

Lily Tidman, a Stage 2 PhD student at Newcastle University, holds an AHRC Northern Bridge Consortium Doctoral Award for her research into volunteering in healthcare contexts in Northumberland, Cumbria, and County Durham, 1979-1997.

Be Part of the Collective

If you would like to be part of the Oral History Collective, the first step is to sign up to our quarterly mailing list.

You may also like to come along to a drop-in or join our monthly online reading group, please email oralhistory@newcastle.ac.uk 

Or join the online community through our blog, The Lug.  

See more from the Collective & find all our social media on our Linktree.