Conference programme

This is a self-guided exhibition visit available throughout the afternoon.

“To the students I say that the honour and dignity of this university are largely in your hands, and I look to you to initiate and hand down worthy traditions to your successors.”

Taking its title from King Edward VII’s remarks at the university’s opening, this exhibition reflects on 125 years of institutional life shaped by students, staff and ideas in motion.

Through film, artworks and objects, it explores how traditions are formed, carried forward and reinterpreted across generations. Themes include civic foundation, moments of crisis and renewal, and the evolving student experience.

The exhibition offers a layered view of the university as a living institution, shaped continually by its communities.

Embark on a journey through history with the Black Heritage Walks Network. Discover the hidden gems of the Jewellery Quarter and learn about the rich African heritage that paved its streets with gold. This is a walking tour like no other, sharing stories and insights that will leave you in awe.

The tour delves into the fascinating history of African gold and its impact on one of Birmingham’s most iconic neighbourhoods. From ancient trade routes to modern-day influences, this tour will shed light on the often-overlooked contributions of Black communities to society. Connect with the city’s past and gain a deeper understanding of its cultural roots.

The Museum of the Jewellery Quarter captures the vital role the industry has played, shining a spotlight on a perfectly preserved workshop and offering a glimpse of working life in Birmingham’s renowned Jewellery Quarter.

When the proprietors of the Smith & Pepper jewellery manufacturing firm retired in 1981, they simply ceased trading and locked the door – unaware they would be leaving a time capsule for future generations. Today, it stands as a remarkable museum offering guided tours and telling the story of the region’s unique heritage.

Join members of the Collection Access Team for a tour of the Museum Collection Centre, Birmingham Museums Trust’s main collection store. Holding over 80% of the trust’s collection of around a million objects, visitors will have the opportunity to see the centre’s open storage warehouse as well as small object stores.

The Museum Collection Centre contains everything from aircraft engines to zoological specimens. Among the thousands of objects stored here are steam engines, sculptures, cars, a giant spider crab, a retro chip fryer, and much more.

During the tour visitors will have the chance to speak to collections staff and learn about how the trust’s Dynamic Collections programme is transforming collections management activities through a participation-centred approach, increasing access to collections and involving communities and volunteers in the care and management of the collection.

A visit to the Cadbury Research Library, home to one of the UK’s most significant university special collections. The department preserves over four million archival items and approximately 250,000 rare books, spanning a wide range of subjects, periods and formats.

This tour introduces the work of collection care and access, alongside examples drawn from the holdings. It offers a rare opportunity to see how large-scale archival and rare book collections are managed, described and made available for teaching and research, highlighting both the scale and the specificity of curatorial practice.

This tour explores the University of Birmingham’s Main Library, a purpose-built academic library that opened just over a decade ago to replace the university’s previous main library facilities. It offers an insight into the building as a working academic environment, and how its architectural design supports large-scale, evolving library operations.

Through a guided walkthrough, participants will consider how spatial planning, infrastructure and service design were conceived to enable flexibility in use, and how those principles continue to shape day-to-day delivery. The session also reflects on the building’s first ten years in operation, considering how academic libraries adapt to changing patterns of study, research and digital engagement. It provides a behind-the-scenes perspective on a live institutional space that continues to evolve.

Winterbourne House & Garden is an Edwardian Arts and Crafts villa and botanic garden, now part of the University of Birmingham. This tour explores its living collections, set within gardens originally designed for the Nettlefold family and later used for teaching and experimentation in plant science.

Walking through a series of distinct garden spaces, you’ll encounter a wide range of planting schemes shaped by both scientific purpose and design interest. The tour highlights how living collections are used today for teaching, research and conservation, while also reflecting the continued relevance of historic garden design.

Named after Charles Lapworth, the University of Birmingham’s first professor of geology and one of the most influential geologists of the nineteenth century, the Lapworth Museum of Geology is home to one of the UK’s outstanding university geology collections.

While the museum’s public galleries showcase exceptional displays of rocks, fossils, minerals and historic scientific interpretation, its holdings extend far beyond what is on view. The collections encompass significant geological specimens, early geological maps, charts, archival material and other historically important resources that document the development of geological science and research.

The session highlights the scope and structure of a major university collection, with attention to how material is organised, preserved and made available for study. It offers a closer view of curatorial practice and the depth of resources that underpin the museum’s work.

Join curators from University Collections for a guided walk through the university’s public sculpture collection, set within beautiful green campus parkland.

The tour traces works ranging from George I on Horseback, the university’s oldest public sculpture, to recent acquisitions such as Red Stack by Shaikha Al Mazrou.

Along the route, curators will pause at selected sites to discuss commissioning, placemaking and the evolving role of public art within a civic university. The tour raises questions around how public art can help to open up shared civic spaces.

This tour will offer an exclusive insight into a major £35.7m heritage restoration project in the heart of Balsall Heath, Birmingham.

The Diving In development will see the restoration of two civic buildings including the Grade II* Moseley Road Baths, as well as Balsall Heath Library. These beautiful spaces will be reimagined over the next three years, restoring swimming to the iconic Gala Pool, adding a mezzanine floor to the library and creating health, wellbeing and leisure activities – and much more besides.

The tour will share an insight into the historical past of the buildings, while exploring how such places are being restored into the modern era. This is a hard hat tour of the construction site. Personal protective equipment (PPE) will be provided on the day of your visit.

The home of steel pen nib manufacturing during the Victorian era, Birmingham was the principal location for 129 companies employing around 8,000 mostly female workers.

Situated in the heart of the Jewellery Quarter, at the Pen Museum you will discover a wide range of fascinating objects and displays that help tell the story of Birmingham’s pen trade and its important legacy – including prominent pen manufacturer Josiah Mason’s role in founding the University of Birmingham.

Join University Collections and Africanize artist–researcher Sipho Eric Ndlovu for a handling session which brings the University of Birmingham’s African Collection to life. This interactive experience invites conference delegates to explore, touch and creatively respond to remarkable pieces up close. Guided by Ndlovu’s practice and the ethos of the wider Africanize project, participants will consider new ways of engaging with museum collections, centring creativity, care and embodied knowledge.

The University of Birmingham’s African Collection comprises material culture from the early twentieth century onward, reflecting diverse artistic, spiritual and everyday practices. With 1,786 pieces, the collection spans west, central and southern Africa, featuring major Yoruba, Hausa and Asante works.

Today, the collection is central to rethinking museum care, supporting collaborative research, and restoring visibility, voice and cultural context to African material heritage through the research project Africanize.

Winterbourne House & Garden is an Edwardian Arts and Crafts villa and botanic garden within the University of Birmingham, bringing together living, archival and museum collections. This session offers the chance to explore Winterbourne’s archives with the curator.

You’ll handle material from the University Herbarium, industrial archives and Nettlefold family archives. The focus is on close looking and discussion, drawing out Winterbourne’s connections with Birmingham’s social and industrial history.

Experience a time capsule of Brummie entrepreneurship and craftsmanship through the preserved Newman Brothers’ Coffin Fittings Manufactory. With working machinery and unusual products adorning the shelves and workbenches – as though the workers set down their tools and have gone for lunch – there’s something to catch everyone’s eye.

You’ll experience how this old Jewellery Quarter firm once operated on a day-to-day basis, producing some of the world’s finest coffin furniture, including the fittings for the funerals of Winston Churchill, Princess Diana and the Queen Mother.

This tour will offer an exclusive insight into a major £35.7m heritage restoration project in the heart of Balsall Heath, Birmingham.

The Diving In development will see the restoration of two civic buildings including the Grade II* Moseley Road Baths, as well as Balsall Heath Library. These beautiful spaces will be reimagined over the next three years, restoring swimming to the iconic Gala Pool, adding a mezzanine floor to the library and creating health, wellbeing and leisure activities – and much more besides.

The tour will share an insight into the historical past of the buildings, while exploring how such places are being restored into the modern era. This is a hard hat tour of the construction site. Personal protective equipment (PPE) will be provided on the day of your visit.

From volcanoes and meteorites to dinosaurs and diamonds, the Lapworth Museum of Geology offers a compelling journey through 4.6 billion years of Earth’s history.

Home to one of the UK’s finest university geological collections, the museum supports teaching and learning at the University of Birmingham while also serving as a valuable resource for researchers from around the world. Its galleries feature exceptional specimens of rocks, minerals and fossils, alongside displays that illuminate the history of geological science.

This guided tour provides MA conference delegates with an opportunity to explore the museum’s galleries with an experienced member of the team, gaining deeper insight into the collections, their significance, and the stories they reveal about our planet’s past. The tour will also include selected behind-the-scenes access, offering a glimpse into the wider collections and the work that supports their care, research and interpretation.

A chance to hear the fascinating stories told in the West Midlands Police Museum and find out how the museum itself came to be. Originating in Tally Ho, the training centre for Birmingham Police, the museum grew as a passion project of a detective sergeant who was gathering materials to train CID officers. It moved to the Steelhouse Lane Lock-up from Sparkhill Police Station in 2022, opening to the public just over four years ago.

The institution holds an incredible collection of archive materials, including some of the oldest mugshots in the UK from the 1850s, prisoner ledgers, and officer records going back to the early 1900s. It also holds lots of uniform and equipment, personal memorabilia and ephemera related to the officers that have policed the streets of the West Midlands, and tells the story of almost 200 years of policing in the area.

A short walk from Thinktank Birmingham Science Museum, this tour is a great stop-off on your route to the Conference 2026 opening party at 1800.

Birmingham’s interactive science museum provides the backdrop to our opening party. Thinktank is an awe-inspiring venue where delegates can network with colleagues over a welcome drink.

Highlights of the ground floor galleries – which focus on transport through the ages and machinery from the Industrial Revolution – include a Spitfire plane that is suspended from the ceiling.

Birmingham’s Castle Bromwich factory produced more than 10,000 Spitfires during the second world war, and Thinktank details the story of the men and women who made these magnificent flying machines.