Where history is the study of the past, heritage is the many ways the past is used in the present. Heritage can be understood as an active, dynamic relationship between then and now, formed through an on-going process of renegotiation, reconstruction, and recreation of what we choose to take from the past with us into the future.  

Heritage is a rapidly growing field of fundamental contemporary significance. It is a key element in the way diverse institutions, political movements and communities recognise their identities, attribute value, contest rights claims and realise their political and economic strategies.

The Cambridge Heritage Research Centre (CHRC) brings together Departments and Faculties from a variety of disciplines across the University of Cambridge to address a range of important themes within heritage research. These include:

• Heritage, identity, and migration
• The role of heritage in conflict and post-conflict situations
• Heritage ecologies – natural and cultural heritage
• Heritage education and museums
• Theorising and applying the tangible/intangible heritage distinction
• Heritage, methodologies and fieldwork​