Awarded Heritage Centre small grants - January 2025

University of Coimbra: Tangible VR Book: Immersive Exploration of Lloyd’s Register Ship Plans

This project aims to create a Tangible VR Book that brings the Lloyd’s Register of Ships collection to life for high-school classrooms. Using smartphone-based VR, the book will allow students to explore ship plans, survey reports, and historical maritime documents in an interactive, engaging format. Each page will incorporate visual markers that, when viewed through a VR headset, trigger 3D models and immersive content from Lloyd’s Register of Ships, making maritime history and engineering concepts accessible. Teachers will also receive a guide to creating their own versions, allowing for broader use in schools. 

National University of Singapore: Registering the Register

A pilot project to test the feasibility of converting digital editions of Lloyd's Register of Shipping to datasets in machine-readable formats (.csv, .dta, .rdta). suitable for use by researchers and general public alike. Improving accessibility to the dataset of ships contained in the register books facilitates research on changes in maritime architecture and engine design, such as specific developments to address the challenges of operating steamships in the Indian and Pacific Oceans after the opening of the Suez in 1869.

The pilot focused on data extraction from the 1860 edition of Lloyd's Register, the information collated and organised in a spreadsheet, with a combination of manual and AI data extraction to maximise accuracy. Over 11,200 records of ships were extracted as part of the project.

Museo Histórico de La Boca: Boca Port Buenos Aires: Lessons from shipwrecks, fires, and floods.

The project compiled 4,800 records in three distinct datasets of historical information on shipwrecks, fire incidents on board vessels or affecting port infrastructure, and flood events related to the port of La Boca, Buenos Aires. This port witnessed the city's history of trade and migration and has been the residence of workers and businessmen. The project surveyed institutional government and community archives historical data, to build up and publish a list of events including causes and reactions (short- and long-term).

The results were collated in a publication and made available online and in limited edition print format. The project raised awareness on the explored themes among the institutions providing historical data, and with the local community through a series of seminars and social media posts. These seminars were an opportunity to gather local knowledge about several records of incidents, allowing the community to comment on lessons from the past and discuss current challenges, with the aim of producing a knowledge-package for policymakers. The project's inter-organisational participatory approach was praised by the local authorities.

Coastal Forces Heritage Trust: Digitisation of Coastal Forces Heritage Trust Archive

The Coastal Forces Heritage Trust (CFHT) seeks funding assistance to professionally catalogue and digitise our extensive archive of unpublished World War I and II photographs, diaries, vessel blueprints, reports, oral histories and other artefacts, ensuring full public access. Digitisation will add significantly to the publicly available body of evidence and insight affecting the safe and effective conduct of maritime operations in that period, the technology and often innovative engineering solutions that were required to keep our sailors alive, and also deliver an outstanding opportunity to advance public education of maritime transport, engineering and seafaring technology in that era. 

Nautical Archaeology Society: Gathering information for citizen science monitoring of polluting wrecks

This data gathering project will create a framework for a potentially polluting wrecks (PPW) citizen science monitoring scheme to make both the environment and water-users safer. Marine environment user groups will be visited to raise awareness of PPWs to them, and the environment. These advocacy visits will establish the current knowledge of PPWs amongst the maritime community and to assess their capacity to safely and effectively collect data. In parallel, relevant government partners will be consulted to ensure that data capture is appropriate for their management of PPWs. This scheme could be disseminated globally through NAS’s international training partners. 

The Maritime Archaeology Trust: Survey of Maritime and Underwater Cultural Heritage below the waves

This project was set up to develop a methodology with international partners as the first phase of a long-term global initiative, by setting up a framework for working with NGOs and coastal groups around the world to assess elements of the maritime and underwater coastal heritage (MUCH). The initiative aims to influence how UCH is understood in relation to oceanic and coastal change, valued, and protected by bridging the gap between scientific research and community engagement. By doing so, it will inform policy, enhance public awareness, and improve practices around heritage preservation and marine safety.

A crucial element of the project was selecting the methodology to record, process, and analyse UCH data, the database forming the foundation of an open-access portal. A communication strategy was developed, agreeing that SoMUCH will engage with the scientific community, national and international government agencies, the local communities, and educational institutions. The project identified a number of pilot case-studies that will bring data onto the portal while also allowing to work directly with coastal communities impacted by the changing coastline, with the aim of applying the results and providing tangible outcomes.

The Small Grant was instrumental in shaping SoMUCH’s direction and future ambitions. It enabled critical milestones such as the co-design of engagement strategies, the planning of major outreach events, a roadmap that includes creation of educational tools, and the expansion of stakeholder networks. Moving forward, the initiative will build on this momentum to scale its activities globally, deepen partnerships, and continue innovating in the field of UCH engagement and protection.