The story of Future Lab started with a chance encounter at a drinks reception between HB&P Director Liz Power and Alice Purkiss, Head of Heritage Partnerships at the University of Oxford. This early introduction, focused as it was on the potential of academic partnership for driving change, development and resilience within the heritage sector, quickly developed into a conversation involving input from both the University of Oxford’s Social Sciences Division and Humanities Division. Eventually, the Heritage Innovations Lab Oxford (HILO) drafted and submitted an early proposal for collaboration to the charity. From January to April 2025, this proposal evolved through a series of drafts and iterations authored by a core team who would eventually comprise the majority of the Future Lab working group: Sterling Mackinnon (HILO), Jess Stitt (HILO), Christina Avramakis (HB&P), and Liz Power (HB&P).
From here, the collaboration made two innovative and influential choices. There was a collaborative investment in funding a demonstration/pilot stage of research called “Stage 0.5”. This began in May 2025 and ran through September of the same year. This project began as a sector mapping exercise designed to help situate HB&P’s current and planned activities within the wider context of the heritage sector. It was further instructive in providing supplementary evidence for the larger proposal for what would become Future Lab.
To these ends, by April 2025 Liz Power had convened a group of volunteer trustees to comprise what was then (and is still) called the “Innovation Committee”. This group proved instrumental in refining the proposal as it related to project objectives, challenges, budgetary structuring and more. By July 2025, the Innovation Committee, in conjunction with the outputs from Stage 0.5, had produced a formal proposal for a research partnership, which was then approved by the HB&P Board at its summer meeting. From there, it was a matter of paperwork and negotiations between the University of Oxford and HB&P, with the official work of Future Lab beginning on 1 October 2025.
The work of the Innovation Committee and the project’s pilot phase have had a lasting effect on Future Lab, now in its first year. The Innovation Committee became a formalised body of project governance that continues to meet quarterly and is primarily responsible for shaping the thematic aims of Future Lab’s research programme. Stage 0.5 evolved into the wider Future Lab working group, who continue to facilitate the programme informed by the Innovation Committee. The Future Lab Advisory Group (i.e. the governance body responsible for the academic partnership) is comprised of key members from the University’s Social Sciences Division and Humanities Division, and likewise grew out of the teams first assembled in the earliest stages of the project’s development. Every stage of Future Lab has proven to have an iterative legacy centred around a commitment to dialogue, collaboration and co-design.
Words by:
Dr. Sterling Mackinnon, Project Manager: Heritage Innovation Laboratory Oxford (HILO)
