Dr Liam O’Hare, Institute Fellow: Religion, Arts and Peacebuilding, is involved in the collaboration between the Queen’s University and the National Museums Northern Ireland to explore and evaluate the potential of the Ulster Museum’s 'Troubles and Beyond' collection in fostering creative thinking skills for young people aged 11-14 from across different religious, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds from non-integrated schools.

The project seeks to address the gap in understanding around how museum education can be designed to influence the development of the skills that are likely to lead to greater levels of social cohesion and peacebuilding.

Isa Sprethuber has been awarded an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) studentship with National Museums NI, which focuses on the connections between conflict and creativity.  Dr Liam O’Hare (SSESW, and Director Innovation Zones at QUB) and Jenny Haslett (Education Manager, National Museums NI) will be joint first supervisors.  The secondary supervisors are Professor Olwen Purdue (HAPP, QUB) and Pamela Baird (Head of Strategic Research & Planning, National Museums NI).

Research activity will include the implementation of a pilot study in communities linked to QUB

‘Innovation Zones’ which will be evaluated to assess its effectiveness in developing creative skills and open-mindedness in the young participants from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The findings of the research will contribute to the development of the Ulster Museum’s Troubles-related education programmes. Ultimately, the theoretical and practical learning from this research could have an international impact on how museums in areas of conflict, or post-conflict can harness the potential of their collections to have a positive impact on children and young people.