(apologies for cross-posting, but it's a UK topic, a MILHIST topic, GLAM topic and an education topic all rolled into one)
You might be interested to know that Wikimedia UK has lent its support to a bid led by a researcher at University of Birmingham, supported by Oxford University and also the Imperial War Museum, for a project funded by JISC to categorise and prioritise the UK's cultural heritage related to World War I.(1)
This isn't a partnership per se though it may well lead to one. The only commitment we have made is to write a letter and go to a meeting, and the outcomes will be very long-term. However I think it's significant because 1) It is good recognition that the Wikimedia movement is a stakeholder in the development of heritage and educational resources. (The phone call when someone from Oxford was saying "we really think your support would add weight to what we're doing" was, erm, interesting) 2) It gives us as an organisation formal access to a strong network of world-leading institutions focusing on this particular task 3) It's also relatively unusual for a Wikimedia organisation to provide support to someone else to apply for third-party funding in a competitive tendering process, but in this case the Wikimedia UK board thought it was quite justified in pursuit of our objectives.
This should help us build up our network of institutional partners, particularly (but not exclusively) aimed at the World War I centenary, and help lay the groundwork for some exciting collaboration work in the future.
Any questions, or if you'd like to express your interest in being involved in future work on the World War I centenary, please give me a shout.
Chris
(1)JISC's Invitation to Tender: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities/funding_calls/2011/09/JISC%20ITT%... Wikimedia UK's letter of support (and a bit of a manifesto): http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Birmingham_JISC_support.pdf The people whose bid we are supporting (though nothing specific about it here): http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/warstudies/index.aspx
Chris Keating, 27/10/2011 19:51:
- It's also relatively unusual for a Wikimedia organisation to provide
support to someone else to apply for third-party funding in a competitive tendering process, but in this case the Wikimedia UK board thought it was quite justified in pursuit of our objectives.
Our characteristic of being a (de facto) network of associations in most European countries (and many others) must not be underestimated: it's very useful, for instance, to participate in EU funds. WM-DE is a good example with RENDER. Universities, on the contrary, spend a lot of energies to build international (more or less fake) networks with lots of paper (and signed documents travelling all over the world for months or years) for consortium agreements etc., which usually don't go anywhere.
Nemo