What does successful community-led research look like?

Founded 2006, the Centre for the Study of International Slavery (CSIS) is a partnership between University of Liverpool and the International Slavery Museum (ISM). It supports and shares leading research about slavery in history, culture, legacies and contemporary society.
This call and response workshop marks CSIS’s 20th anniversary by reflecting on its past, present and future. What has CSIS achieved and what work still needs to be done? How successfully has CSIS fostered collaborations between academics, museum staff and the public? What types of research should CSIS support? How can the perspectives of local people be centred in research? And what does community-led research look like?
By exploring these questions, the workshop will help shape the next chapter of CSIS – and ISM. With the museum currently undergoing a complete refurbishment, the workshop invites participants to review proposed designs and make suggestions about the look, feel and uses of community and research spaces within the new ISM. To guide the conversation, the workshop spotlights current projects by researchers at the University of Liverpool’s Special Collections and Archives and the Connector programme – a new partnership between the Lloyds Register Foundation and National Museums Liverpool.