An AHRC-funded, ‘follow-on’ project on migration, identity and place led by Elena Isayev, working with asylum seekers and schoolchildren in Swansea. The aim is to use art and community activities to enable each of the groups involved to develop and revise their ideas about migration, identity and place and about the other group.

Read more: Future Memory in Place

The Sex and History project, led by Rebecca Langlands and Kate Fisher, uses an award-winning methodology for delivering relationships and sex education based on historical artefacts. It was highly commended by the Family Planning Association in 2017 for the Pamela Sheridan Award for innovation and good practice in relationships and sex education, was used as an exemplary case-study in April 2018 in a report commissioned by the Welsh Assembly, Informing the Future Sex and Relationships Education Curriculum in Wales, and in May 2018 in Museums as spaces for wellbeing: a second report. The projects works to develop high quality resources and training for educators and policy makers in a range of settings including mainstream schools, specialist units and youth groups in the UK. It works with policy-makers and educators to help improve sex and relationships education, in the context of a widespread concern about the failures of current provision. A recent change in UK government policy-making has made sex and relationship education a statutory requirement in England, and there is a need for new guidelines and significant curriculum development. A goal of the project is to develop approaches which help specialists deliver their goals of supporting young people, enable healthy sexual development, and deliver broader social and personal benefits. A parallel goal is to develop the capacity of museums to enhance sex and relationship education through their own community engagement and to influence museum policy and practice in Europe and beyond.

Gabriele Galluzzo is one of the leaders of the Modern Stoicism project, which engages psychotherapists, academics and the public with major topics from Stoic philosophy, with particular emphasis on ethics. The aim of the project, which stems from research conducted in the department of Classics and Ancient History at Exeter, is to inform current therapeutic strategies and to promote a more holistic and comprehensive approach to wellbeing. The activities of the Modern Stoicism network culminate with the annual Stoic Week, which includes an international conference on Stoicism and a ‘Live like a Stoic for a week’ online course, which is taken by thousands of people around the world. Parallel to the Stoicism project, Gabriele Galluzzo is also conducting in Shared Learning Project with the Exeter University of the 3rd Age a series of learning activities, which are designed to apply ancient philosophical ideas to modern issues and concerns.

Citizenship education aims to equip young people with the skills and knowledge they need to engage actively with society – but it’s often under-resourced, delivered by non-specialists, and sometimes offers little more than an introduction to the British constitution and a few abstract political theories, rather than supporting proper engagement with contemporary issues and problems. The aim of this project is to develop resources to help young people think through vital themes of power, justice and inequality in their own ways, through a process of engaging with the ideas of one ancient Greek author who thought about the same issues two and a half thousand years ago. It draws on the research of Neville Morley into the modern reception and influence of Thucydides and his text, and of Lynette Mitchell into Greek political thought in its original context, to develop a portfolio of activities and supporting resources that bring Thucydides’ famous Melian Dialogue to life as a stimulus to reflection and debate, including a series of games and interactive exercises and a specially adapted presentation of the text.