Rebecca Coll received her doctorate in 2016. A partnership between IWM and the University of Cambridge, her research investigated the 22-year directorship of Dr Noble Frankland, looking at developments he led that resulted in the reshaping of the IWM into a major international war museum.
Framing these changes within broader contextual elements, including an increasingly transnational approach to the history of war and the emergence of ‘public history’ in the 1960s and 1970s; the project examined IWM’s track record in four principal chapters: departments and staff, exhibitions, acquisitions and partnerships, generally adopting a case study approach. Extensive investigation into the IWM’s archive material regarding Dr Frankland, and the new recording of oral histories from past and present colleagues formed an important part of the research, illuminating Dr Frankland’s approach to leadership, decision-making and delegation.