Academic research at IWM

IWM is an Independent Research Organisation, working in partnership with leading universities on academic research projects that provide new insight into the history of war and conflict. We also host students studying IWM’s world class collections through our Collaborative Doctoral Partnership scheme.

Our appetite for new approaches and our curators' knowledge of our extensive collections provides an essential grounding to how we curate and present the history of conflict. Our research aims to speak not just to the academic community but to all our audiences.

Accessible Pasts, Equitable Futures

IWM’s reading room. The room is full of long white desks with swivel chairs. Running along one wall are shelves full of reference books for consultation.
© IWM
IWM London's Research Room.

Accessible Pasts, Equitable Futures is an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project that explores how IWM's digital heritage collections can be made more accessible to disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent researchers.

This two-year research project is led by researcher Ann-Marie Foster and covers both online digital collections, and ones that can only be accessed in IWM's Research Room. 

Read more about Accessible Pasts, Equitable Futures.

Current & Recent projects

  • A soldier stands up in an army lorry stopped in the middle of a road in a Burmese town
    IWM (SE 1019)

    Beyond Borders

    Beyond Borders: The Second World War, National Identities and Empire in the UK is a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh, Swansea University and the IWM funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research & Innovation (UKRI). 

    The project examines how the peoples of the home nations (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) perceived their national identity and sense of belonging during the Second World War, and the extent to which this shifted as people moved across the British Empire at war.

     

  • Two British servicewomen feed a dikdik using a bottle
    IWM MAU 489

    Cold War and 'Other Narratives'

    Cold War and ‘Other Narratives’ is a collaboration between IWM and the University of the Arts London (UAL), London College of Communications.  

    Using the archives of IWM and taking the Cold War as a dominant narrative, this project explores diverse or buried stories that have impacted independence movements throughout the West's colonial territories.  

  • Tim Hetherington holds a camera whilst taking a self portrait.
    © HU 137369

    The Tim Hetherington collection and Conflict Imagery Network

    Between 2020and 2022, the University of Leeds and IWM received Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funding for a series of network events, which explored the archive of the award-winning conflict photographer Tim Hetherington.

See our latest Research Reports.

Collaborative Doctoral Research

IWM supervises several Collaborative Doctoral Award students who are researching their PhDs through the Arts and Humanities Research Council's Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships Scheme. 

A group of CDP students sat around a table talking

Collaborative Doctoral Awards

Learn more about our Collaborative Doctoral Partnership programme, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

A view from the top of a ridge on the Falklands. Two helmets are visible against the blue sky.
© IWM (FKD 2779)

Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Projects

Explore CDP research projects with topics ranging from 'Dreaming and the First World War' to 'Surviving Modern War: experiences British service personnel in the Falklands campaign, 1982'.

Four students sit at a table in conversation

Student Testimonies

Read testimonials from past and present CDP students.