Fellows Around the World
The Durham Collections Fellowship programme has transformed from a regional initiative into a truly global network.
Our partnerships now span six continents, connecting scholars and cultural heritage professionals across more than 26 countries and supporting over 128 international fellows.
This growth has enabled groundbreaking collaborative projects, from digitisation initiatives in South Asia to manuscript preservation in Africa. Fellows return to their home institutions as ambassadors for innovative heritage practices, creating lasting impact that extends far beyond individual fellowships.
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Over 100 fellows
I was honoured and delighted to be awarded the visiting fellowship. Although I have visited Durham many times for the purpose of my project it was only on this visit that I had a formal link with the university itself and the opportunity to collaborate. I enjoyed giving talks to the History Department and to the Durham Sixth Form Centre and teaching Latin Palaeography; and it was a great pleasure to have the affiliation with St Chad’s College during my time in Durham.
Elizabeth Gemmill
Lendrum Priory Visiting Fellowship (University of Oxford, England)
I was delighted to be awarded a Lendrum Fellowship to work at the Durham Residential Research Library and to be part of the fantastic research community around these collections. My research would not have been possible without the fellowship, because the books I am working with are specific to Durham Cathedral in the sixteenth century, and offer important clues about what happened there during the Reformation. Durham is enormously fortunate in its collections because such a large proportion of its pre-Reformation books stayed in the region, whether in the Cathedral collections or gathered into the library at Ushaw, and it...
Elizabeth Biggs
Lendrum Priory Visiting Fellowship (University of York, England)
'The opportunity to work intensively with the manuscript treasures of Durham special collections was invaluable. The collegial and friendly atmosphere generated in the cohort of fellows was an added bonus!'
Professor Gordon Pentland
Barker Visiting Fellowship (University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom)
As I had always intended to follow up with an English ‘Book of Colours’ whose terminology I had already discussed with Durham’s pre-eminent scholar of medieval manuscripts Richard Gameson during previous visits I was delighted to learn about the Library and Collections Visiting Fellowship programme. Thus, seconded by Richard and his ‘Team Pigment’, I set out with the first English translation of the ‘Master Bernard’ while juxtaposing its content with contemporary book painting practises on the isle – as described and analysed in the 2023 ‘Pigments of British Medieval Illuminators’ (ed. by Gameson and Suzanne Reynolds of the Fitzwilliam Museum,...
Thomas Reiser
Lendrum Priory Visiting Fellowship (Independent Scholar, formerly Technical University of Munich, Germany)
"The Residential Research Fellowship at Durham University provided me with vital, extended access to important collections that uncovered, and helped explain how and why, Catholic kin networks engaged in settler colonialism and the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved people in a bid to secure their own safety from anti-Catholic legislation. The collections proved that these networks were vast, global, and connected to theological and cultural change brought about by the Catholic Reformation as much by Protestant ones. Most importantly, the advice that I received from staff at Durham and Ushaw College with expert familiarity with these collections meant that I developed...
Dr Helen Kilburn
DRRL Visiting Fellowship (University of Manchester, England)
I was honoured to be granted a Visiting PhD Bursary at the DRRL. Durham University staff gave me a warm welcome and helped me all throughout my research stay. This fellowship was a great opportunity to work on the Poor Clares Darlington Collection held in Palace Green Library. With the assistance of the archivists and librarians, I was able to consult a great number of manuscripts. These primary sources allowed me to analyse and compare different aspects of female lived spirituality within English Poor Clare convents which is at the heart of my PhD. Last but not least, this award...
Claire Schiano-Locurcio
PhD Bursary (Aix-Marseille Université, France)
I was most grateful to receive a Holland Visiting Fellowship in the Spring of 2020. The research facilities it offered were just what I needed, giving me space and time to work undistractedly on a long projected study of Bishop Christopher Butler, whose family papers are in Durham University Library’s Special Collections, and bring it to near completion. I am expecting the Weldon Press to publish the study in late Spring or Summer this year.
Peter Phillips
Holland Visiting Fellowship
The Lendrum Priory Visiting Fellowship at Durham University was an exceptionally rewarding experience in every respect. The fellowship provided outstanding conditions for focused research, combined with an intellectually stimulating and genuinely academic environment. Access to outstanding library and special collections, together with the professionalism and generosity of staff and colleagues, greatly enhanced the quality and scope of the work undertaken. Equally valuable was the opportunity to engage fully with the wider academic and collegiate life of Durham, which enriched the fellowship well beyond the strictly research-based dimension. I am deeply grateful for the support received and very much hope to...
Georgina Olivetto
Lendrum Priory Visiting Fellowship (University of Salamanca, Italian)
The Holland Visiting Fellowship was a transformative experience for me, as a researcher, and in terms of my own career development. It came at a crucial time, just as I had finished my PhD and my first postdoctoral teaching position. As a fellow at Durham I could pursue various threads of my second research project, using dedicated time in the Palace Green Library to understand how papers from their Sudan archives could be harnessed for my work on colonial South Asia. This time in the archive provided me with new theoretical perspectives that have shaped the funding applications I am...
Ellen Smith
Holland Visiting Fellowship (University of Leicester, United Kingdom)
I was awarded the Durham Research fellowships twice, in 2017 and in 2019. Both times I had a first-class experience as I could enjoy an excellent staff which helped me from the organization of my journey to my stay in Durham. The archival resources at Ushaw College are outstanding and I could see and collect all the material with ease. I also enjoyed the conferences and seminars organized by the department of history as I learned so much in such a short time. Overall, it has been a wonderful research experience and I’m looking forward to coming back!
Matt Binasco
Holland Visiting Fellowship (Università per Stranieri di Siena, Italy)