AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Award - Intimate Energies: How Do Museum Collections Help Us See Unrecognised Actors in the History and Future of Energy?

University of Leeds - School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies

The School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds and the Museum of the Home are pleased to announce a fully funded Collaborative doctoral studentship, from October 2026.

Session 2026/27 - Closing Date 17:00 (UK time) 1st May 2026

Award provides full fees and maintenance at the UKRI rate (£21,805 in Session 2026/27), a London allowance of £1,000 per annum plus a £600 enhancement per annum, a research training support grant and other allowances (pro rata for part-time study).

Project overview

This research asks, ‘How can learning about a wider range of energy actors and actions in the home in the past help communities be active in energy decisions in the present and future?’ The climate crisis requires a comprehensive, interdisciplinary response, addressing all aspects of how we live. Such “grand challenge” research often ignores what drives the need for energy - behaviours that shape energy demand.

This project responds by framing energy demand as configured by the intimate relations and everyday practices involving household members, and people who offer trusted advice. It explores a new perspective on energy history by focusing on encounters in the household and on the agency of women negotiating energy decisions. The Museum of the Home collections, documenting the expansion of London and commuter lifestyles that instigated different patterns of energy use show that the promise was that new energies would make life easier – but for whom, under what conditions?

The project’s novelty lies in bringing insights from historically oriented humanities subject and museums into conversation with sustainability studies at the cutting edge of energy policy and practice in the UK, creating a conversation between energy history and the applied debate around energy futures.

Research objectives:

• Examine the role of women in the home
• Examine different patterns of energy use
• Explore the role of museums as spaces where conversations about energy pasts, presents and futures are generated through engagement with domestic objects and archives.
• Connect this research to the way in which overlooked actors configure energy demand today, finding points of resonance for research in contemporary policy making.

You will be supported to develop and answer questions that address:

• How can learning about a wider range of energy actors and actions in the home in the past help communities be active in energy decisions in the present and future?
• How can research in the Museum support and inform policy and practice?
• What is the role and potential of the Museum as a space where visitors and community outreach projects engage with objects and documents from the past, in order to ask questions about who are the actors missing from stories of energy change?
• How can we use research on the history of domestic energy decisions to inform the next stage of the Museum’s award-winning sustainability practice?
• What is the value of different methods to engage communities in this type of research?

For further project information contact Professor Abigail Harrison Moore