Work with us: guidance for academics

A visitor looks over archive newspaper clippings

As part of the Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) between the University of Manchester and the National Trust in the North, we’ve developed tools and guidance to make it easier for university-based academics to work with us.

This toolkit includes information about the National Trust’s research priorities; who to contact about potential research collaborations; guidance on the documentation that makes it easier to plan, coordinate and evaluate partnerships; and case studies of successful projects between academics and staff and volunteers based at National Trust properties.

The tools and guidance are based on the learnings of the seven pilot properties of the Knowledge Transfer Partnership at Dunham Massey, Little Moreton Hall, Lyme, Nostell, Quarry Bank, Speke, and Sizergh. We’ve been working with academics based at sixteen universities across the North to develop new research projects.

Download the guidance

Fenton House Phone

Who to contact 

The National Trust is a big place. This guidance for academic partners explains some of the different staff roles at the Trust, where they sit in the organisation’s structure, and how academic researchers might work with them on collaborative projects.

Leeds University students planting trees on Yockenthwaite Moor, Upper Wharfedale, North Yorkshire

Ways of working 

This guidance sets out the main ways that the National Trust typically works with university-based researchers, including joint research projects, collaborative interpretation projects, critical friends, collaborative PhDs, and research placements.

A National Trust volunteer meets people from all walks of life.

Researching with volunteers 

The Trust has hundreds of volunteers who actively research in a variety of areas, from bio-surveying to oral history research. Find out how you can work with them.

Three researchers look over an artefact at Quarry Bank.

Working with partners 

Find out more about our collaboration with the University of Manchester and how the Knowledge Transfer Partnership has opened up new ways of working at Quarry Bank in Cheshire.

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Research at the National Trust

The National Trust is an Independent Research Organisation, recognised by UK Research and Innovation. Find out more about how and why we do research.

Find out more