FCDO ODA allocations for 2021/22 were announced on 21 April 2021. Changes to individual programmes are underway. The information on this website may not reflect the latest allocated budgets for this year. This information will be updated in due course.
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UK-Jordan Partnership Facility Programme
Conflict, Stability and Security Fund
This programme will provide a whole of government approach in the delivery of UK commitments to Jordan. This is an ODA and non-ODA integrated programme. The spend reported against this programme is the ODA element alone.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-52-CSSF-06-000033
Start Date:
2019-04-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£2,410,000
Jordan Political Stability
Conflict, Stability and Security Fund
This programme contributes to strengthening Jordan’s political stability with more accountable and transparent governance, stronger rule of law, an effective legal system and improved record of human rights. It seeks to achieve this through the following strands: (1) The Municipal Services and Social Resilience Programme Project which strengthens state capacity by making municipal governments more capable and accountable in delivering services to Jordanian and Syrian residents and so reducing the risk of tensions both within communities and directed against the state. (2) Reducing community tensions and strengthening citizen-government dialogue by delivering conflict-management techniques and essential infrastructure. (3) Strengthening decentralised governance by building the effectiveness of Parliament, citizens and civil society. (4) An intervention to strengthen the rule of law, including supporting implementation of the recommendations made by the Royal Commission on Judicial Reform.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-52-CSSF-06-000016
Start Date:
2018-04-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£9,940,000
Jordan Internal Security
Conflict, Stability and Security Fund
This programme aims to contribute to a reduction in internal security threats in Jordan by engaging in the following areas: (1) Support to the strategic direction and implementation of Jordanian policing reform. (2) Support the Government of Jordan’s Youth Strategy by building on previously approved resilience enhancing psychosocial activities. (3) Aims to integrate a gender-based approach towards women’s participation in prevention and protection processes during conflicts, as well as in peace building and maintaining stability and sustainable security. This is an ODA and non-ODA integrated programme. The spend reported against this programme is the ODA element alone.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-52-CSSF-06-000018
Start Date:
2018-04-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£7,240,000
British Council - Jordan - Newton Fund
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
The Newton Fund uses science and innovation partnerships to promote economic development and social welfare of partner countries.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-NEWT-BC-Jordan
Start Date:
2018-04-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£423,172.38
Jordan- UK El Hassan Research Chair
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
The Jordan – UK El Hassan bin Talal Research Chair in Sustainability is a joint initiative between the British Academy and the Royal Scientific Society of Jordan (RSS). Its aim is to enhance the research and innovation capacity of Jordan for long-term sustainable development. The initiative is supported by the Newton-Khalidi Fund. This call is open to applicants with established expertise in any area relevant to the challenges of sustainability, particularly in the context of Jordan. Such areas could relate to, but need not necessarily be limited to: food security, water, energy and the environment, cities and infrastructure, climate change, sustainable livelihoods, health and well-being, migration and displacement, inequalities, and education. Specific objectives include expanding research and innovation capacity within the social sciences and humanities in Jordan with a particular focus on the area of sustainable development and issues of relevance and importance to the local context; and improving Jordan’s international research and innovation competitiveness while responding to socio-economic challenges in the country.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-NF-BA-JORC-1007
Start Date:
2020-10-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£480,000
British Academy Core - Challenge-led grants: Sustainable Development
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
This programme funds excellent, policy-oriented UK research, aimed at addressing the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and advancing the UK’s Aid Strategy. It supports researchers in the humanities and the social sciences working to generate evidence on the challenges and opportunities faced in developing countries and respond to the Sustainable Development Goals. The Academy is particularly keen to encourage applications from the humanities in this round.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-BA-GCRF-04
Start Date:
2016-12-31
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£8,895,000
British Academy Coherence & Impact - Challenge-led grants: Early Childhood Education
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
The projects funded under this programme aim to provide critical knowledge to inform policy-making in the education and broader learning domain, while recognising the necessary interplay of education with health, nutrition, gender equality and other disciplines and sectors.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-GCRF-CImChlGECE
Start Date:
2019-10-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£4,321,513
British Academy Coherence & Impact - Education and Learning in Crises
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
This programme funds research exploring the challenges of education and learning in contexts of conflict and protracted crises.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-GCRF-CImERICC
Start Date:
2020-01-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£1,500,000
Leaders in Innovation Fellowship Programme
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
The Leaders in Innovation Fellowships programme builds technology entrepreneurship capacity of select partner country researchers who are developing a business proposition for their innovation which must meet a development challenge. Selected researchers benefit from focussed short term training and long term support through access to expert mentors and international networks.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-NEWT-RAE_JOR_800
Start Date:
2019-07-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£538,122
Transforming Systems through Partnership programme
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
To solve today’s most pressing development and sustainability challenges, academics need to work with industry, government and the public to build trust, design appropriate solutions and scale their uptake. The Transforming Systems through Partnership programme builds engineering teaching, research and innovation capacity within partner countries' universities to collaborate with local stakeholders and UK academics in meeting local and global development challenges.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-NEWT-RAE_JOR_803
Start Date:
2019-10-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£745,125.34
Healthy housing for the Displaced
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
Our vision is to transform the lives of displaced people encamped in extreme conditions through an engineered solution to housing that promotes a new science of shelter design. The project will entail research in five of the world's largest refugee camps. Zaatari and Azraq (Jordan), Kilis (Turkey), Mae La (Thailand), Nyarugusu (Tanzania). These have populations of up to 250,000 and hence are in many ways cities. They have summer temperatures >35degC and occasionally >40degC; in these conditions un-insulated dwellings are unable to provide safe conditions. In addition, such locations can have 1600W/m2 of solar radiation, further raising the temperature inside a dwelling, and in the case of Jordan winter temperatures of -10degC. In Thailand the high humidity is likely to be of equal importance in placing thermal stress on occupants. In addition, displacement shelters can use polymeric materials which contain a high proportion of VOCs such as plasticisers and release agents, and have poorly ventilated cooking facilities using fuels such as wood, thereby generating particulates. Camps were once expected to be a short term solution, and this is still true in some settings. However, as witnessed in numerous locations around the globe, encampment often continues for years or decades (for example, the 340,000 strong Dadaab camp in Kenya opened in 1992). Even in natural disasters delays in rebuilding can lead to displacement camps taking on aspects of semi-permanent settlement. The challenges of survival in the immediate onset of an emergency quickly give way to concerns about the suitability of shelter over a longer timeframe. Such basic dwellings inhibit domestic life, educational delivery to the young, and development of the social relations needed for community cohesion. Often the need of traumatised people for a sense of security and privacy also goes unmet. Unfortunately, even the state of the art in current shelter provision does not adequately consider building physics, thermal comfort and air quality. There is also a general lack of attention to socio-cultural issues. Thus, for example, our pilot study in Jordan has revealed through social surveys a consistent concern amongst the displaced population with the issues of safety and privacy. Given the diversity of potentially available building materials, climates and cultures, there will be no single shelter solution, but rather a need for a systematic process of design that is cognisant of the climate, landscape, culture, length of time the accommodation might be needed, flexibility as family size changes and portability. This project will develop such a design process by creating a new science of shelter design through engagement with aid agency staff in four countries with diverse weather, cultural conditions and political sensitivities. This will involve 1) wide scale social and indoor environment surveys in five camps; 2) the construction of a series of potential designs in the UK, in a climate chamber and in Jordan; and 3) the production of a multi-language, extreme climate building physics-based, culturally sensitive, shelter design tool for agency field staff.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-FUND--GCRF-EP_P029175_1
Start Date:
2017-05-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£1,586,595.99
Fit-for-purpose, affordable body-powered prostheses
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
Upper limb loss can have devastating effects on an individual, particularly if that person is already surviving at a subsistence level. Prostheses can be used to replace the missing limb, offering both cosmetic and functional benefits. In lower and middle income countries (LMICs), conflict and road traffic accidents mean that demand for upper limb prostheses is high, however provision is sparse, and maintenance is a major challenge. Body-powered (BP) prostheses have seen little development since the early 20th century, despite high self-reported rates of rejection. Nevertheless, BP prostheses are well suited for use in LMICs, being potentially simple to manufacture and maintain. If the reasons for rejection (e.g. limited functionality, cost and heat-related discomfort) can be addressed, BP prostheses offer a potentially viable solution. Therefore, this project will bring together an experienced team from across the UK, Uganda and Jordan to create a new BP prosthesis that is optimised for adoption by LMIC prosthetic services and acceptable to LMIC users. This will include establishing methods of fabrication, fitting and evaluation of the prosthesis which are appropriate to LMICs. Our two LMIC partners (Uganda and Jordon) have been selected because of the unique challenges of prosthetic provision in these countries. Uganda is one of the least developed countries in the world, with poorly resourced and fragmented rehabilitation services. Jordan is an upper middle income country, with well-developed clinical training, but facing immense pressures on prosthetic services due, in part, to regional conflicts. To achieve our goals, the following work packages (WPs) are planned: WP1: The requirements of amputees in both Jordan and Uganda will be investigated using focus groups and questionnaires. WP2: We will develop an engineering/human factors specification for a BP prosthesis optimised for LMICs by identifying the key features of the conventional BP prosthesis that determine its functionality and usability. WP3: Informed by WP1 & 2 we will develop a new design, optimised for LMICs. We aim to restore a high level of functionality, in a culturally acceptable manner, and in a way that is well suited to local prescription, manufacture and fitting. To ensure local relevance, we will work closely with our partners in Jordan and Uganda. WP4: In parallel to the work in WP3, we will address more ambitious design challenges, creating and testing a highly novel prototype in the laboratory. This division of the work will allow us to move quickly towards a practical solution for LMICs and to also include more novel but higher risk research. WP5: There is currently no objective data on the extent to which prostheses are worn, how they are used, or the impact on daily life. We will develop a digital tool kit that includes a sensor system to capture both motion of the prosthetic arm and complementary data (for example, prosthetic hand opening/closing and location), and an Android app to provide feedback to designers, clinicians, and users. WP6: To support the long term impact of this project, we will work with our LMIC partners to support improved provision (including local manufacture and better clinical support) and hence enable uptake of the new BP prosthesis.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-FUND--GCRF-EP_R013985_1
Start Date:
2018-02-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£1,412,730.26
The Living Museum of Umm Qais: Sustainable preservation, analysis and virtual reconstruction of Gadara's ancient site and village
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
The proposed project aims to record, preserve, and analyse the endangered and multi-layered heritage site of Umm Qais including the Ottoman village houses, tracing their origins and materials to ancient Gadara's plan. It will develop a coherent understanding of the distinctive layers of the Greek, Roman and Ottoman heritage and more recent cultural heritage practices and products. The project looks not only on the archaeological and physical fabric of Umm Qais but also on ways to enhance the local community's socio-cultural engagement with the site through skills development and capacity building in digital heritage and tourism enterprise, with the ultimate aim to raise the profile of the site and make it economically sustainable. Our interdisciplinary research team brings pioneering scientific research and innovative methods into using digital and virtual heritage technologies to record, preserve and disseminate the site's archaeological features and historic significance to the local, national and international tourism community and as a catalyst for 'Decent Work and Economic Growth' (UN SDG 8). The project will specifically address UN SDG 2030 target on devising and implementing policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products. It will inform the sustainable preservation of the site, fostering novel economic opportunities, and design an effective public engagement platform for local communities. The key research question is: ""How effective is the integration of archaeological research, LiDAR scanning, and virtual technologies in synthesising novel and evidence-based findings on historical evolution and conditions of Umm Qais' heritage and guiding a community-led sustainable development strategy that will re-engage community members, attract global tourism and shape dynamic economy around heritage and tourism enterprises?""As such, the proposed research has four main objectives that will: a) undertake archival and archaeological research on the history and architecture of the Ottoman Houses and Central Gadara. We will use material analysis techniques mapping history, components and spatial structure of the ancient city. Fieldwork surveys will also identify elements at risk for priority protection and conservation. b) develop and implement a customised methodology for accurate 3D laser scanning and digital survey, to record, analyse and virtually model the archaeological site, its current conditions and historical evolution over time. This method will encompass 3D laser scanning, 3D sound recording, structural analysis, and form a critical digital database of the site's archaeological assets. c) attempt to produce a credible spatial layout of ancient Gadara and Ottoman houses overlaying archaeological, spatial data, and satellite imaging on a custom-designed ArcGIS model. This will be used to develop a virtual heritage experience and knowledge platform for Umm Qais heritage through Interactive visualisation, educational infographics and virtual trials of both settlements to raise the awareness of the site's significance as a critical part of a sustainable tourism strategy. d) train and engage local community members and young people in documenting and recording the socio-cultural history and living stories of the Umm Qais local community and residents. This will not only facilitate skill-training for early career researchers, but it will build capacity amongst the local community to establish own social, and private enterprises and start-ups that contribute to income generation, active economy and tourism industry.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-FUND--Newton-AH_S011609_1
Start Date:
2019-02-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£200,718.79
A multi-isotope base map for Jordan: a tool for re-examining movement and community in the past
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
The relationships between mobile pastoralists and sedentary agricultural communities, between ""the steppe and the sown"", have historically played a key role in the formation of the national identity of the modern state of Jordan. In recent decades, however, a high rate of immigration has had a significant impact on Jordan's social fabric and its natural environment, with substantial implications for sustainable development and for its sense of self. Issues of identity and community, and of how these are constructed, have become matters of significant debate. We seek, therefore, to use a case study from the past to advance new perspectives on the nature of community and expand consideration of these issues. A recent project at Durham University demonstrated through isotopic analysis of skeletal remains that more than 50% of the individuals interred in a major 7th-9th century CE cemetery at Bamburgh, capital of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, did not originate from northeastern England, but from a world extending from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia. The diverse nature of the community at this major Anglo-Saxon site raises important questions about traditional narratives around British identity. We therefore seek to explore issues of diversity in a Jordanian context through a comparable case study. For this purpose, we have selected the site of Pella, an important community in the Jordan Valley that has produced a long sequence human skeletal material spanning a period of ca. 4000 years. Traditional ways of identifying migration and mobility in the archaeological record, which often rely on substantial changes in material culture, are problematic. Isotopic analysis of skeletal remains, in contrast, can provide direct evidence for mobility, and its application has informed major reconsiderations of the European past. The accurate interpretation of patterns of movement requires an understanding of spatial variation in local isotopic signatures in the natural environment - in effect, baseline mapping. The absence of this information in Jordan has hampered previous efforts to employ isotopic studies and has prevented the kind of nuanced understandings of past communities that are now reshaping our view of the European past. As a result, this project seeks to create through laboratory analysis an essential baseline dataset that will enhance the value of existing archaeological collections by using isotopic geochemistry as a technique to understand patterns of movement in the past. We will use this technique to investigate the relative homogeneity/diversity of an important Jordanian community at different points in time. While this case study offers exciting possibilities, we first aim to create a major piece of research infrastructure, in the form of a multi-isotope base-map for Jordan. This will provide the underpinnings for this project, but will also provide an essential point of reference for all future isotopic analysis in the country. We believe that this base-map will spur a rapid increase in the uptake of isotopic techniques within Jordanian archaeology. We therefore propose a two-part project: 1) Construction of a multi-isotope base-map for Jordan (87Sr/86Sr, 18O, 34S, 13C, 15N), comparable to the Biosphere Map of Britain. This would represent the first bioavailable multi-isotope map for any country in the Middle East. The data underlying the construction of this map will be made available as an online database, and map resources of spatial variability in bioavailable isotope values will also be made freely available online, to allow them to be used for future studies. 2) Undertake a study that employs a deep-time approach to the history of mobility and community in Jordan, by analyzing human remains from multiple periods at Pella. This site, located in the Jordan Valley, has one of the longest sequences of human burials in Jordan, and thus offers an ideal long-term case study of changes in mobility.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-FUND--Newton-AH_S011676_1
Start Date:
2019-02-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£200,405.46
Rewriting the Prehistory of Jordan
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
Jordanian prehistory begins with the traces left by human ancestors on a key route out of Africa into Europe and Asia. This earliest phase is mainly known from scatters of flint tools made, used, and abandoned. Around 20,000 years ago, archaeological preservation improves providing evidence for some of the most profound changes in human history. These include the development of food producing technologies, the domestication of plants and animals, and the social and ideological developments that enabled living together in increasingly large and sedentary communities: what have been identified as the earliest modern societies (e.g. Cauvin 2000). Similar developments took place independently in a number of regions across the globe (Barker 2006), but their earliest manifestation was in Southwest Asia. Until recently, Jordan was considered as marginal to this process, but archaeological evidence now suggests that Jordan was important region to this transformation. Sites such as Kharaneh IV in the Epipalaeolithic show developments in subsistence and social complexity from c 20,000 years ago, while recent excavations at Shubayqa now provide evidence of permanent architecture from the Natufian period c 14,000 years ago. The earliest Neolithic, the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (12,000-10,300 years ago), was barely known in Jordan even a decade ago, but is now known from multiple sites. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (10,300 - 8,700 years ago), previously thought to derive from developments elsewhere, is now seen to incorporate local innovations when the Jordanian plateau became one of the most densely populated parts of the world. Although field evidence remains scarce, the Late Neolithic (8,300-6,500 years ago) continues a local historical trajectory when the farming package consolidates. Jordan plays an important role in the development of nomadic pastoralism following the domestication of sheep and goats. With notable exceptions, such as Profs Zeidan Kafafi of Yarmouk University and Maysoon al-Nahar of the University of Jordan, early prehistoric archaeological research has been dominated by international researchers, and has been marginal to archaeology and cultural heritage presentation within Jordan. The narrative of early prehistory has been largely written by international scholars, whose focus has been to place Jordanian evidence into a wider regional and global context. With the exception of scholars working directly on Jordanian material, most Near Eastern Neolithic archaeologists continue to downplay the significance of Jordan, indeed, with rare exceptions (such as mention of the large Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B sites), Jordan does not register in regional syntheses, and the crucial early developments evident in Jordan are often omitted. Prehistory does not figure in Jordanian school education, despite the many resonances with contemporary issues of settling down, the growth of sedentary communities, and the early development of an agricultural package that still lies at the core of Jordanian subsistence. This project aims to develop a new generation of Jordanian scholars and cultural resource managers working in early prehistoric research. We will focus on Jordanian engagement, helping develop Jordanian skills, policies and procedures to research and manage prehistory, and to foster a new research environment with Jordanian perspectives and agendas. The project will seek to engage the wider Jordanian public in prehistory, where a lack of local interest translates into a lack of protection for these sites. We will raise the profile of prehistory, show its relevance to modern life in the origins of herding, farming, and water management, all vital to modern Jordanian society. We want to show this is a human and local story, not just academic and global. We will develop the tourism potential of prehistory, locally and internationally, to provide direct economic benefits to rural communities and the Jordanian economy.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-FUND--Newton-AH_S011595_1
Start Date:
2019-02-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£151,510.42
OUR PAST, OUR FUTURE, ALL TOGETHER IN FAYNAN
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
Faynan is an impoverished region of southern Jordan. It has a remarkable landscape of archaeology that has received more than 40 years of research, principally by UK, US and German research teams. The Department of Antiquities, supported by the AHRC funded 'Discovering WF16' (AH/P005594/1) project, has begun to develop a local museum with the joint aims of developing eco-tourism to generate income into the local community for sustainable development, and build community engagement with the museum for social cohesiveness and well-being. The objective of the 'Our Past, Our Future, All Together in Faynan' project is to make a significant contribution to this task: to build community engagement with the Faynan Museum and facilities for eco-tourism to support social cohesiveness, individual well-being and sustainable economic development in Faynan. This will be achieved via six work packages, each with their own objectives and of equal priority: Objective and WP1: To re-design the museum by working with the Faynan community to co-create the gallery space to include representation of the last 100 years of Faynan's history. The current exhibition ends abruptly at the Ottoman period, inadvertently implying that the 'past is the past', having played no role in shaping the present day community, economy, politics and landscape. It also fails to record the character and diversity of lifestyles in Faynan throughout the last century, these now rapidly being lost from memory. Objective and WP2: To facilitate members of the local community to tell their own history and stories about Faynan in their own way, and represent this within the museum. The current exhibition tells the story of Faynan entirely from an external, western and academic perspective. It fails to provide an account of Faynan's history from the local community itself. What are their stories about Faynan? How are the stories of each tribe different from each other? What are their views about key events of the past that have shaped their present? How might the museum present their own view of history to themselves, their children, neighbours and visitors to Faynan? Objective and WP3: To support the six schools in Faynan to develop an awareness and understanding of Faynan's cultural heritage, to provide educational resources and activities at the Faynan Museum, and to use these for teaching and learning across the curriculum. Objective and WP4: To connect the museum to the landscape by installing information boards at a further 20 archaeological sites, ensuring these are discretely placed so as not to interfere with the natural landscape of Faynan and the walking experience it provides. One of the purposes of the museum exhibition is to guide visitors and members of the local community to sites in the landscape where there would be such discretely placed information boards. Because of previous limitations of funding, these have only been established for three of the 30 most significant archaeological sites in Faynan. Objective and WP5: To make the cultural heritage of Faynan accessible to those unable to visit archaeological sites in its remote locations or to visit Faynan at all. This will make use of photogrammetry to document and make accessible a sample of Faynan's archaeological sites and artefacts via digital display in the museum and on the Faynan Heritage website. Objective and WP6: To enable the museum to become a community hub by designing social and play space for adults and children in its immediate vicinity. In Faynan we need to counter the idea of a museum as a building that houses relics of the past only to be visited for educational matters. While such a museum might be valuable for short-term visitors to Faynan, and be appropriate for relatively affluent local communities, a museum of this type can only make a limited contribution to sustainable development in regions of economic deprivation.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-FUND--Newton-AH_S011633_1
Start Date:
2019-02-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£202,383.72
Learning from Multicultural Amman: Engaging Jordan's Youth
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
Communities and especially the younger generation in Jordan are poorly engaged with their multicultural heritage, both in formal education and at touristic heritage sites and museums which do much for the Jordanian economy but little for its social development. Our project is designed to tackle this challenge, by training museum staff, teachers and university lecturers to take advantage of the rich educational resources of Jordanian museums, and to consequently create better opportunities for their pupils and students to value Jordan's rich past. Some key principles underpin our mission: undertaking our research in a rigorous, critical and ethical manner; working with the past for the benefit of present-day and future generations of Jordanians; celebrating the multicultural heritage of Jordan's diverse communities; highlighting the educational value of museums and their collections; identifying, sharing and adapting best professional practice for the Jordanian museum and education sectors; creating and working in new partnerships that connect not only some of the best scholars and heritage professionals in the UK and Jordan, but also museums, schools and universities, for mutual benefit; and persuading influential policy makers that, by adopting these transformative principles, museums and their users can make a positive and lasting difference to Jordan's economy, culture and society. We do not yet have all the answers. Despite over 40 years of academic and professional research and debate over community engagement in heritage globally, we still need to understand much more about the Jordanian museum situation, including the professional and social barriers to fully exploiting their educational potential. We also need to find out - by systematically asking and listening to people in the heritage and education sectors - what developmental changes might work best in the Jordanian context. We are certain that high quality training of our collaborating museum staff and educators will make a difference. But we also want to experiment as a team with new ways of teaching and learning in museums, to figure out what approaches work best, both for teachers and for young learners. Ultimately, we want to pass on what we have learnt to other stakeholders, ranging from decision makers in Jordan to scholars and museum professionals globally.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-FUND--Newton-AH_S011641_1
Start Date:
2019-02-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£192,935.31
Dhiban: Valuing Sites Through Valuable Stories
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
The aim of this project is to strengthen the local stewardship of Tall Dhiban, a large mound 70 kms south of Amman Jordan, by enhancing its economic and social value. This will be achieved by increasing local connectivity with the site and improving on-site interpretation and management. Tall Dhiban is well-known as capital of the biblical kingdom of Moab and the find spot of the Mesha inscription (now in the Louvre), the longest Iron Age royal inscription from the Levant. Despite the strong historical narrative and biblical connections provided by the Mesha Inscription, the site is seldom visited by tourists and is poorly understood by local residents because the visible archaeological remains are difficult to interpret and partially obscured. Modern Dhiban is an adjacent Bedouin town of the Bani Hamida tribe that has been the site of economically motivated civil unrest since at least 2011. This unrest has led to increased looting of Tall Dhiban as well as violent confrontations between police and protestors on the site itself in 2016. This project aims to transform the site of Tall Dhiban into a cultural resource for the building of positive local heritage identities, as well as an economic resource for local businesses by increasing the number of external visitors to the site. In doing so, we also aim to build capacity in Jordan for public history and the management of cultural heritage sites. This will be pursued with a two-fold strategy. In town we will run a schools based public history programme working with teachers and Mutah University trainee researchers. This project will culminate with a History Festival, in which student family history projects and social media will be used to encourage residents of Dhiban to contribute their own stories, images and artefacts. A repository of these materials will be turned over to the community for self-directed public history projects in future. One emphasis of this public history project will be on the relationship between the town, tribe and the tell (archaeological mound) of Dhiban. On the tell itself we will work with Hashemite University students to prepare a site management plan and interpretive signs and related materials for presenting the site. We will also instigate a programme of site maintenance and cleaning, and the establishment of visitor pathways. Through a Jordanian non-profit (SELA Training) we will provide a nationally recognised vocational training programme in basic conservation techniques for dry-laid stone architecture to four unemployed youths from Dhiban, which should allow them to find more regular and better paid employment within the heritage sector in Jordan. It will also provide us with skilled technicians to help stabilise the exposed architecture from various phases of Dhiban's 5,000 year settlement history. Current visitor numbers for Tall Dhiban are very low, hence we expect that any improvement to the presentation of the site will lead to a proportionately significant increase in visitors and external income. It will also allow Tall Dhiban to be a potential stop on developing day-tour circuits within the Madaba Governate, where one already finds two UNESCO World Heritage Sites and several important concentrations of mosaics. The site will also serve as a point of integration between often intagible local historical narratives and the global and national narratives that dominate archaeological interpretation. Academically, we will trial best practices for realising this integration, articulating the histories of the town and the tell as intertwined and continuous. If successfully presented, the site will become easier to integrate into local cultural and educational activities and provide a more diverse and nuanced experience of Jordan for foreign tourists. It is already evident that engaging with recent histories will challenge academic approaches to tell sites that do not analyse them as places that are still in formation.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-FUND--Newton-AH_S011714_1
Start Date:
2019-02-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£202,282.95
ARCHAEOLOGY TO BUSINESS IN FAYNAN: EMPOWERING AND ALLEVIATING THE POVERTY OF BEDOUIN WOMEN IN SOUTHERN JORDAN
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
1. To empower and alleviate the poverty of Bedouin women in Faynan, southern Jordan. The region of Faynan and Gregira in southern Jordan is one of the most poverty stricken areas of the country, with women suffering especially high levels of deprivation. The region also has some of the best preserved and most distinctive archaeological monuments within Jordan, with considerable excavation having been undertaken by AHRC-funded UK teams, and those from the US. The objective is to use the outcomes of this research to support the alleviation of poverty. 2. To use the outcome of AHRC funded archaeological excavation at the early Neolithic site of WF16 to inspire the design of high quality and locally distinctive handicraft products for sale to tourists visiting the archaeological sites in Faynan. The AHRC funded excavation of the early Neolithic site of WF16 (2008-10) recovered a unique collection of Neolithic art objects, principally stone and bone engraved with geometric designs, with some human and animal depictions. This provides a source for designs for handicrafts that will be unique to the locality of Faynan. The products will raise awareness of the AHRC funded research and its findings to previously unrealised stakeholders. 3. To establish a 'Women's Cooperative Society' for the manufacture, marketing and sale of these handicraft products. Tourism is on the increase in Faynan, but the local Bedouin community is currently unable to benefit because it lacks products that might sell to the tourists. Jordan is flooded with cheap handicraft imports from China and India, with tourists increasingly looking for locally distinctive high quality products. 4. To provide handicraft and business training to members of the cooperative so that it becomes a self-sustaining business, beyond the end date of the project. The aim is to support the Bedouin women in their development of a sustainable business enterprise that will be financially viable after the funding support has come to an end. As such, training will be provided in market research, pricing, accountancy, customer relations and so forth. 5. To identify and develop venues for the sale of the handicrafts in Faynan and from outlets in Amman. While Faynan will be the principal market for the sale of handicrafts, using specific tourist locations, such as the Faynan trekking camp, arrangements will also be sought with handicraft outlets in Amman to provide additional income streams. 6. To enhance social cohesion, cooperation and well-being within the Bedouin women from different tribal groups in Faynan. There are five different tribes within Faynan, each having different access to different resources, and different types of skills. The project seeks to build on a willingness from the women to develop greater cooperation between the tribes so that these skills and resources can be shared for the benefit of all. 7. To provide a case-study of how University-based researchers can work with an NGO committed to international development to generate economic impacts from Arts & Humanities based research.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-FUND--GCRF-AH_T00777X_1
Start Date:
2020-02-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£86,819.76
MaDiH: Mapping Digital Heritage in Jordan
UK - Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
MaDiH will research and analyse Jordanian digital cultural heritage infrastructure, assets, tools, and systems, to prepare the ground for a subsequent phase of infrastructure and systems development, expand the Jordanian digital cultural heritage community, and transfer knowledge to the United Kingdom cultural heritage and research sectors. Objectives, in order of priority, are: 1. Identify relevant national and international policies, frameworks, and standards and make recommendations for their future development and/or implementation in a policy white paper. 2. Identify necessary improvements to existing infrastructure, systems, and tools and make recommendations for their future development in a technical white paper. 3. Identify existing online and offline datasets, and list them in a publicly available prototype national data catalogue. 4. Produce a prototype national heritage portal. 5. Transfer knowledge about Research Software Engineering (RSE) from King's Digital Lab to Jordan, and transfer knowledge about Jordanian computer science and digital cultural heritage from Jordan to the United Kingdom. 6. Enable Jordan's digital cultural heritage community through a series of events involving government, university, and technology sector stakeholders. 7. Disseminate knowledge gained from the project via a basic website.
Project identifier:
GB-GOV-13-FUND--Newton-AH_S011722_1
Start Date:
2019-02-01
Activity Status:
Implementation
Total Budget:
£174,619.76