BA (Hons) Conservation of Cultural Heritage
University of Lincoln
Key Information
Campus location
Lincoln, United Kingdom
Languages
English
Study format
On-Campus
Duration
3 years
Pace
Full time
Tuition fees
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Application deadline
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Earliest start date
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* late applications will be considered if suitable vacancies remain
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Introduction
Conservators play a key role in the protection and care of cultural heritage, preserving artworks, architecture, archaeology, and museum collections for future generations to enjoy.
The BA (Hons) Conservation of Cultural Heritage degree offers the chance to gain extensive, hands-on experience working on a range of historic materials provided by museums, historic houses, and private collections.
Students on the course work together in high-specification, purpose-built laboratories in the University's Peter de Wint Building. During their studies, they can become familiar with different materials, time periods, and collections within their historical context.
Conservation is a multidisciplinary course, drawing together skills in art, science and history, and applying these to cultural heritage. Students in this course have the opportunity to study both the theory and practice of conservation. This enables students to navigate decision-making and ethics through independent research and the guidance of tutors.
Throughout the course, students can carry out conservation treatments and scientific analysis of historical artefacts. This starts with simple objects in the first year and increases in complexity as skills and knowledge grow. The course culminates in an exhibition of work at the end of the final year, celebrating the achievements of the graduating group with their family and friends, as well as potential employers.
The second term of year two offers students the opportunity to study at a partner institution, choose from a range of optional modules from across the School of History and Heritage, or undertake an extended work placement. Students have the opportunity to source their own placement in a historic property, museum, or private workshop in the UK, or overseas.
"This information was correct at the time of publishing (July 2023)"
Admissions
Curriculum
How You Study
The course is delivered through workshops, studio and laboratory sessions, lectures, demonstrations, and seminars. After an initial introduction to conservation skills, materials and techniques, practical work is carried out on historic objects from museums and private collections.
First Year
- Applied Practical Skills (Core)
- Becoming a Professional (Core)
- Conservation Processes (Core)
- Conservation Science 1 (Core)
- Conservation Theory (Core)
- Documentation techniques (Core)
- Introduction to Visual and Material Culture (Core)
Second Year
- Applied Practical Conservation 2 (Core)
- Conservation Science 2: Analytical Techniques (Core)
- Preventive Conservation (Core)
- 100 Years of Photography: Images, History and Impact 1839-1939 (Option)†
- Accessing Ordinary Lives: Interpreting and Understanding Voices from the Past, 1880 present (Option)†
- Aesthetics (Option)†
- Alexander the Great and his Legacy: the Hellenistic World (Option)†
- Art and Power: Projecting Authority in the Renaissance World (Option)†
- Britons and Romans, 100 BC-AD 450 (Option)†
- Classical Reception: from Medieval to Modern (Option)†
- Classics in Context (Option)†
- Conservation placement (full time) (Option)†
- Conservation placement (part time) (Option)†
- Decolonising the Past (Option)†
- Digital Heritage (Option)†
- Disease, Health, and the Body in Early Modern Europe (Option)†
- Early Modern Family: Households in England c.1500-1750 (Option)†
- Existentialism and Phenomenology (Option)†
- Experiencing and Remembering Civil War in Britain (Option)†
- Fighting for Peace? Politics, Society and War in the Modern Era (Option)†
- From Bright Young Things to Brexit: British media and society since 1919 (Option)†
- Gender and Sexuality in Britain 1700-1950 (Option)†
- Grand Expectations? America during the Cold War (Option)†
- History and Literature in the C18th and C19th (Option)†
- History of Medicine from Antiquity to the Present (Option)†
- Introduction to Exhibitions, Curatorship and Curatorial Practices (Option)†
- Italy, a Contested Nation (Option)†
- Latin Literature in the Late Republic and the Augustan Age (Option)†
- Living and dying in the middle ages, 800-1400 (Option)†
- Madness and the Asylum in Modern Britain (Option)†
- Material Histories: Objects, Interpretation, Display (Option)†
- Media, Controversy and Moral Panic (Option)†
- Medicine, Sexuality and Modernity (Option)†
- Migration in British Art, 1933 to the Present (Option)†
- People on the move: migration, identity and mobility in the modern world (Option)†
- Philosophy of Science (Option)†
- Power and the Presidency in the United States (Option)†
- Powerful Bodies: Saints and Relics during the Middle Ages (Option)†
- Renaissances (Option)†
- Salvation and Damnation in medieval and early modern England (Option)†
- Scrambling for Africa? Cultures of Empire and Resistance in East Africa, 1850-1965 (Option)†
- Study at a partner institution: Conservation (Option)†
- Teaching History: designing and delivering learning in theory and practice (Option)†
- The Age of Improvement: the Atlantic World in the long eighteenth century (Option)†
- The Arthurian Myth (Option)†
- The Birth of the Modern Age? British Politics, 1885-1914 (Option)†
- The Emperor in the Roman World (Option)†
- The Forgotten Revolution? The Emergence of Feudal Europe (Option)†
- The World of Late Antiquity, 150-750 (Option)†
- Themes in American Cultural History (Option)†
- Understanding Exhibitions: History on Display (Option)†
- Understanding Practical Making (Option)†
- Urban Life and Society in the Middle Ages (Option)†
- Village detectives: Unearthing new histories (Option)†
- Women in Ancient Rome (Option)†
- World Heritage Management (Option)†
Third Year
- Applied Practical Conservation 3.1 (Core)
- Applied Practical Conservation 3.2 (Core)
- Applied Preventive Conservation (Core)
- Conservation exhibition (Core)
- Conservation independent study: dissertation (Core)
† Some courses may offer optional modules. The availability of optional modules may vary from year to year and will be subject to minimum student numbers being achieved. This means that the availability of specific optional modules cannot be guaranteed. Optional module selection may also be affected by staff availability.
How You Are Assessed
This course is assessed by coursework in all three years. The way students are assessed in this course may vary for each module. Examples of assessment methods that may be used include practical work, presentations, blogs written assignments, reports, or dissertations. The University of Lincoln's policy is to ensure that staff return assessments to students promptly.
We aim to make our assessments as authentic as possible, so they help people prepare for a career in heritage. Examples include communicating conservation to the public through a video or poster and producing reports about the objects treated within the conservation practical modules.
Gallery
Program Outcome
How You Study
The course is delivered through workshop, studio and laboratory sessions, lectures, demonstrations, and seminars. After an initial introduction to conservation skills, materials and techniques, practical work is carried out on historic objects from museums and private collections.
Scholarships and Funding
Several scholarship options are available. Please check the university website for more information.
Program Tuition Fee
Career Opportunities
Graduates of this course can progress into a range of careers in the conservation and heritage industries. Links with employers around the world have opened up opportunities for our graduates in prominent institutions, such as Historic Royal Palaces, the V&A Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Graduates can choose to go on to undertake further study at Master’s or doctoral level.