AHRC - Objects of Care: The Role of Museum Collections in Supporting Young Adults’ Mental Health

HRC Collections & Communities in the East of England Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CC-EE CDP)

The University of Leicester and the Fitzwilliam Museum, alongside the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of  Cambridge are pleased to announce a fully-funded Collaborative doctoral studentship, from October 2026, under the AHRC’s Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Scheme.

This project will be jointly supervised by:

• Dr Nuala Morse  nuala.morse@le.ac.uk Associate Professor in Museum Studies (University of Leicester) 
• Dr Michelle O’Reilly, Associate Professor of Communication in Mental Health (University of Leicester)
• Dr Kate Noble, Assistant Research Professor Museum Participation and Practice (Fitzwilliam Museum)
•  Dr Sarah-Jane Harknett, Head of Public Engagement and Learning (Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology)

There will also be opportunities to spend time working with colleagues and collections at Norfolk Museums Service. 

Eligibility headlines:

• We encourage applications from a diverse range of people, from different backgrounds and career stages.
• Students should have a Masters Degree in a relevant subject or can demonstrate relevant equivalent experience.
• The studentship is open to both home and international applicants.
• The studentship can be studied either full or part-time.  
• Further details below in section ’Eligibility’

Project Overview 
Young adults aged 18–25 now report the poorest mental health of any age group in the UK, with rising levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness (Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, 2025). This doctoral project responds to the urgent crisis in youth mental health by investigating the potential of museum-based programmes for supporting young adult’s mental health promotion and prevention. Working with the Fitzwilliam Museum and Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, in partnership with University of Cambridge Museums and Norfolk Museums Service, the project will investigate how museum object-based engagement can foster psychological wellbeing and resilience for young people.  

Three key areas guide the research: 

(1) Collections: examining how object types (e.g., artworks, natural history specimens, science collections) and their qualities (material, historical, and aesthetic) can prompt different emotional responses and connections; 

(2) Practice: identifying effective participatory and creative methodologies for engaging youth across diverse collections; and 

(3) Impact: understanding specific wellbeing outcomes from object-led encounters.

The project builds on existing research around object-based learning (Kador, 2025) and object-handling for wellbeing (Chatterjee & Kador, 2020; Cowan et al., 2019), to focus on the mechanisms through which object-based engagement fosters emotional resilience, social connection, and psychological wellbeing. The project will draw together interdisciplinary perspectives from museum studies, education, anthropology, psychology, and creative health. The student will be encouraged to develop participatory approaches, placing young people’s lived experiences at the heart of the project. This will involve sustained engagement with youth groups through participatory workshops, object-handling sessions, store tours, and collaborative programming. Participants will explore different types of collections and reflect on their relevance to issues that matter to them, such as identity, belonging, transitions, uncertainty, and wellbeing.  The target group will be young people 18-25 who have low level mental health need, recruited through existing partnerships held by museum learning teams in Norfolk and Cambridge, to reach people from previously excluded groups who may face barriers to museum access.  
The methodology could include qualitative methods, such as interviews, reflective journals, creative outputs and ethnographic observations, or a mixed-methods approach including wellbeing measures. The student will be supported to develop an interdisciplinary approach to analysis, drawing on concepts such as material agency, affective resonance, sensory engagement and psychological wellbeing (e.g., autonomy, resilience, and self-efficacy).  There is also scope for the project to be developed as a practice-based PhD, with the student producing a portfolio alongside a written thesis.

Anticipated Outcomes and Impact
This project aims to generate new theoretical insights into the role of museum objects in supporting mental health and wellbeing for young adults. It will contribute to the development of a programme theory for museum-based wellbeing interventions, identifying the mechanisms and conditions under which object engagement fosters positive outcomes. This could include developing an intervention description and evaluation design to be implemented by the CC-EE museum teams (which may be evaluated within the timeframe of the research). 
The research will deliver direct benefits to young people through a co-produced inquiry into the design of youth-programmes in museums. It will equip museum professionals with practical, evidence-based tools to deliver youth-focused wellbeing programmes, helping to reimagine museums as inclusive spaces of care (Morse, 2020) and strengthen their role within creative health systems and policy development. 

Research Questions
The project is guided by three areas of enquiry for the student to develop, drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives from museum studies, education, anthropology, psychology, and creative health:
Collections:

• What are the affordances of different types of museum collections (e.g., scientific specimens, artworks, historical artefacts) for supporting the wellbeing of young adults?  
• How do different objects and their qualities – material, historical, authentic, affective and aesthetic – prompt different kinds of connections and emotional responses? 
• How can they be displayed and used to address the issues that matter to young people and spark resilience, hope and joy? 

Practice: 

• What types of collections and methodologies are most effective for engaging young people? 
• What different approaches are required to support wellbeing outcomes across different collections?

Impact Focus

• What specific wellbeing outcomes emerge from engaging with museum objects? 
• What outcomes are shared and what are unique across object-led encounters? 

Benefits and Opportunities
This collaborative PhD studentship offers the opportunity to develop skills and experience for careers in the creative and cultural sectors.
As the CDP programme emphasises work-based skills, the four years of funding (up to seven years part-time), includes PhD research but also development activities including internships and placements, as applicable to meet the successful student’s needs. At the outset of their PhDs, students will complete an individual training needs analysis and plan. This is a unique opportunity to gain a wide range of transferable professional skills, which may include learning and public engagement, interpretation of collections, creative health, museum methods and younth-led participatory research. 
The student will join the University of Leicester’s School of Heritage and Culture, where Museum Studies researchers, practitioners and postgraduate students come together to think creatively and critically about museums, galleries and heritage. They will have access to the University of Leicester Doctoral College training and support. This PhD project also forms part of the anniversary celebrations that mark 60 years of global impact of Museum Studies at Leicester. During this time, Museum Studies at Leicester has acquired a global reputation for leading-edge thinking and experimental practice in Museum Studies.

At the Fitzwilliam Museum and part of the Collections & Communities in the East of England (CC-EE) Collaborative Doctoral Programme (CDP), the student will become part of a vibrant cohort of collaborative doctoral researchers.  The prospective student will have access to the relevant collections at the Fitzwilliam and become part of a varied, interdisciplinary research culture with public benefit and engagement at its heart. 
The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) holds around one million objects of archaeological, anthropological, and social significance from around the world. MAA has a strong strategic focus on working with local communities and diaspora groups, in line with its mission to foster global collaborations and inclusive heritage practices.

Norfolk Museums Service holds outstanding collections ranging from pre-history to contemporary art. It consists of 10 museum sites, a study centre and a collections centre and is a local authority-run museum service, led by Norfolk County Council. They have a strong commitment of working with audiences and work with a range of young people on their National Lottery Heritage Funded Kick the Dust project.
The successful candidate will be encouraged to participate in professional development events and activities organised for all Collaborative Doctoral Partnership students who are registered with different universities studying with cultural heritage organisations across the UK. These activities are organised by a coordination team based at the V&A and are designed to provide CDP researchers with the knowledge, networks and skills to thrive in their future careers.

We want to encourage the widest range of potential students to study for a CDP studentship and are committed to welcoming students from different backgrounds to apply. We are keen to hear from individuals with varied expertise who can bring unique perspectives to the studentships. Experiences beyond academia, including other experience in a professional setting are also highly valued; this includes diverse lived experiences and those with an understanding of diverse research practices, outputs, impacts and engagement practice. We encourage applicants from all backgrounds to apply, even if you are not certain that you meet every criterion. We particularly welcome applications from Global Majority backgrounds as they are currently underrepresented at this level in this area.

Online Webinar

All CDP projects are part of a nationwide programme called the Collaborative Doctoral Partnership consortium. The CDP consortium will host an online webinar for prospective applicants on 13 April 2026 at 11:00. This webinar will provide an overview of the CDP funding scheme. 
To sign up for a webinar, please email cdp@vam.ac.uk with the subject line “Prospective Applicant Webinar” from the email address you would like to join the online meeting from. Sign up will close on 10 April 2026 at 17:00.
Please note, this webinar will not focus on individual projects.

A word document version of this page can be downloaded here

• Opportunity to speak with project supervisors at HEI and CDP Award Holder about the project and the process.
• Opportunity to speak with contacts within the HEI and/or CDP Award Holder regarding institutional support systems (e.g., neurodiversity, racial diversity and LGBTQIA+ networks, mental health support, support for carers). 
• Insight into the interview process (e.g., selection criteria used)
• Opportunity to speak with active CDP students to ask questions regarding student experience as part of the CDP scheme. 

Your application will not be adversely affected by disclosing a disability, and it will be processed in exactly the same way as any other application.
We will send interview questions in advance to all candidates who are invited to interview. 

For full application advice please read the sections below before applying. The application link is at the bottom of this webpage.