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 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)
The Durham Residential Library Fellowships are a particularly good opportunity for independent researchers like me to keep up their research skills and maintain a research profile. During my Barker Visting Fellowship at Durham, I gave a paper on the monograph I had just published, took part in a ‘work in progress’ session, made connections with new colleagues with similar research interests, and reconnected with old friends based at Durham. The focus of my fellowship was the Grey papers in the Palace Green Library, in which I explored correspondence between Richard More O’Ferrall, the Irish Catholic governor of Malta between 1847...
Dr Aidan Enright
Barker Visiting Fellowship (Leeds Beckett, 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 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)
I was pleased to be awarded a DRRL Visiting Fellowship to undertake research on Sir John Marshall ‘s one-hundred-year-old photographic collection now preserved at the Oriental Museum. The Fellowship provided me with an excellent opportunity to understand the provenance of Buddhist sculptures preserved in Peshawar Museum Collection (Pakistan) and to compare the sculptures with others at important Buddhist sites in the Gandhara region and across the Indus in Taxila Valley. I was also able to study the present state of conservation of some of the objects now preserved in the different museums of Pakistan thanks to this photographic collection, as...
Tahir Saeed
DRRL Visiting Fellowship (Department of Archaeology and Museums, Islamabad)
The Durham Residential Research Library Fellowship offered a chance to work with the University’s wonderful collection of early books in a really supportive environment. Between the study spaces, the library and fellowship staff, and especially the cohort of fellows, the month in Durham didn’t just give space to think and write, but offered new connections and lasting friendships. The work I did there inspired new directions in my own research, and is now informing a larger project on the paratextual features of manuscripts and early printed books. This has been a real highlight in my academic career.
Jonathan Zecher
Barker Visiting Fellowship (Australian Catholic University, Australia)
I am very grateful for the opportunity this fellowship has afforded me to focus on the rich materials available at Palace Green Library. Durham has been a wonderful place to work, and the fellowship scheme is very welcoming and helps you connect with other fellows while giving you plenty of time to get your work done. I have been able to work with materials I couldn’t have found anywhere else and would encourage others to look into what’s available in the amazing collections here.
Joanne Myers
Barker Visiting Fellowship (Gettysburg College, USA)
My time at Ushaw enriched my understanding of recusancy in the eighteenth century generally, and more specifically of recusants as a dynamic diasporic readership
John Stone
Holland Visiting Fellowship (Universitat de Barcelona, Spain)
I would like to express my profound gratitude to the Barkers fellowship, to all the friendly and helpful librarians at the Palace Green, Bill Bryson and Ushaw libraries, to Professors James Kelly and Bennett Zon and to Barbara Jackson for the wonderful and inspiring research stay in Durham. Reading the 19th century letters and rare books has enabled me to gain a clearer picture of the intricacies of the history, culture and politics in Central Asia. The talks my fellow researchers gave at IAS and subsequent discussions were very inspiring for my work. It was a great opportunity to network...
Maria Rybakova
Barker Visiting Fellowship (Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan)