New leadership at CCHS UGOT and UCL

As former Co-Director, changing roles with former Director Kristian Kristiansen, Wetterberg will build on the work already established together with colleagues of the Centre for Critical Heritage Studies.

The centre has so far been striving to develop new and interdisciplinary work in a broad range of subjects within Critical Heritage Studies, building bridges and collaboration with scholars and universities internationally as well as with a wide spectrum of heritage institutions.

What challenges lie ahead?
– The main task during the three coming years of the CCHS will be to develop a long term strategy for the centre with all colleagues in Gothenburg and London. How do we consolidate our achievements, and what are our challenges? We will continue to work on a synthesis of our contribution to the global challenges in the broad sense set out by the UN development goals, and by the UGOT Challenges approach, says Ola Wetterberg.

At UCL Theano Moussouri has taken over the leading position after Michael Rowlands. Rowlands has together with Kristian Kristiansen led the start-up and consolidation of the partnership between University of Gothenburg and UCL for the launch of the centre in 2016. Rodney Harrison will support Moussouri as Co-Director at UCL.

Broad research profiles
Prof Wetterberg has a multidisciplinary background in architectural history, integrated conservation and urban planning, and has also been working at museums, heritage authorities and the National Heritage board. He has been a Co-Director at the CCHS, Professor in Conservation of Built Environment, Head of the Conservation Department and Pro-Dean of the Science Faculty. His work uses historical and theoretical perspectives from urban studies and conservation to address urban development and heritagisation processes, as well as questions on professionalisation in the conservation field. One main research area is religious buildings as heritage, combining theoretical analysis with management issues.

Prof Wetterberg is part of the team setting up a new international research school HERILAND (Cultural Heritage and the Planning of European Landscapes) that starts in 2019.

Theano Moussouri is Associate Professor in Museum Studies at UCL Institute of Archaeology, where she coordinates the MA Museum Studies programme and is one of the Heritage Studies Co-Heads. Theano has a background in Education and Museum Studies. In the past, she worked for the Science Museum on a number of large scale exhibition projects including the Wellcome Wing. As Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Museums and Gallery Education at the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, she worked on a number of research projects which focused on transforming professional practice and museum policy. These include the Learning Impact Research Project which developed a theoretically-driven framework for measuring the outcomes of learning in museums, libraries and archives, and which has been adopted by Art Council England, The Smithsonian Museums and the National Science Foundation in the US.

Moussouris research focuses on the role museums play in people’s life, on knowledge production and learning, and on museum practitioners’ professional practice. Her most recent research examines these issues in the context of food diversity, heritage and security. Recently, she co-authored the book entitled Museum Learning: Theory and Research as Tools for Enhancing Practice. She is Associate Editor for Curator: The Museums Journal and on the Editorial Board of the Science Museum Group Journal, Museum & Society.

Photos: Top: Ola Wetterberg and students in Rome. Bottom: Theano Moussouri