Research is the key to understanding the historic environment: its scope, value and condition, and the threats and opportunities that confront it. Research underpins the sustainable management of the historic environment.  Our research encompasses these prime objectives and contributes towards providing public access to, and appreciation and enjoyment of, the historic environment for this and future generations.  By delivering practical high-quality research results, we will contribute to knowledge and inform and direct policy decisions, advice, guidance and other forms of action and assistance. 

The English Heritage Research Strategy, Discovering the Past, Shaping the Future was published in 2005.  This document establishes our first five-year corporate strategy for the use of research to provide the future knowledge base for the historic environment and its sustainable management. 

Research Commitments and Research Outputs

In its Research Strategy for 2005-2010: Discovering the Past, Shaping the Future, English Heritage promised to publish information about its research each year downloadable summaries of our research outputs are available from the Research Strategy pages of the English Heritage website. Some of this research is undertaken internally by staff directly employed by EH, other projects are undertaken by external researchers funded through our Historic Environment Commissions programme (HEEP) and through the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF).

English Heritage’s research projects, whether undertaken internally or commissioned externally, are undertaken according to the themes set out in the Research Agenda which also relate to Making The Past Part Of Our Future, English Heritage’s corporate strategy for 2005-2010.

For information about HEEP and ALSF projects, use the HENV Online pages, which provide complete listings of all projects funded through these programmes. The data for the online reports is updated on a monthly basis.