Research projects

School Meals Service: Past, Present – and Future?

Through a combination of historical and ethnographic approaches, our project seeks to discover the impact of the School Meals Service upon schools, communities and families from 1906 until the present day. We ask what lessons may be learned from the lived experiences of school meal recipients, teachers, parents and catering staff, both now and in the past. The project is led at IOE by Professor Gary McCulloch with Dr Heather Ellis (University of Sheffield) and Dr Gurpinder Singh Lalli (University of Wolverhampton).

Project website: About SMS (theschoolmealsproject.co.uk)

Generation UCL: Two hundred years of student life in London

In the lead up to UCL’s bicentenary in 2026, a research and engagement project puts students and alumni at the heart of the history of UCL. ‘Generation UCL’ explores 200 years of student life in London, turning institutional history upside down to suggest that the first students of 1828 should be seen as the real ‘founders’ of UCL. Generation UCL is establishing the first major collection of oral history interviews with UCL alumni and has supported the deposit of students’ union archive material and student ephemera with UCL Special Collections. Importantly, the project is also researching student life at the many formerly independent higher education institutions that later merged with UCL: the Middlesex Hospital Medical School (1835), the School of Pharmacy (1842), the London School of Medicine for Women/Royal Free Hospital Medical School (1874), the London Day Training College/Institute of Education (1902), the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (1915), the Institute of Archaeology (1937) and the Institute of Neurology (1950). The project is led by Professor Georgina Brewis and Dr Sam Blaxland. The open access book Student London: A New History of Higher Education in the Capital will be published by UCL Press in 2026. A programme of impact and engagement activities that involve the whole UCL community include work on the history of Students’ Union UCL, a revised and updated walking tour and an exhibition in UCL’s Octagon Gallery which ran until December 2024.

Project blog: Generation UCL | Students Union UCL

A specially commissioned film using historic footage can be seen here.

The Redress of the Past

The Redress of the Past is major Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project examining historical pageants in twentieth-century Britain. Drawing on oral and written evidence, the project offers key insights into the role of heritage in leisure activities, the interaction between local, national and imperial identities, and the changing character of community life in twentieth and early twenty-first century Britain. It reveals the stories that communities and institutions told about themselves through historical pageantry, an immensely popular and all too often overlooked way in which many people engaged with their pasts. In July 2019, the team was awarded follow-on funding for impact and public engagement.

Project website: Home | Historical Pageants

Colin Penman and Sam Blaxland review objects shortlisted for the 2023 Octagon Exhibition organised by Generation UCL