The Sainsbury Research Unit (SRU), based in the Sainsbury Centre at UEA, is a centre for the study of the arts and material culture of Africa, the Pacific region and the Americas.
It has six permanent academic faculty supported by library and administrative staff. Visiting fellows, research associates and postdoctoral researchers working on special projects also contribute to the academic life of the SRU.
It has its own teaching and study facilities and a specialist research library known as the Robert Sainsbury Library, all on hand in the Sainsbury Centre.
Our courses
The SRU offers MA and PhD degrees, with generous scholarships and funding support for students. MRes and MPhil options are available.
It also offers visiting fellowships for postdoctoral scholars and hosts regular conferences, symposia and other academic meetings.
The MA and PhD programmes are intended for those interested in careers in higher education, museums and galleries, publishing, journalism and development.
Our research and teaching
Combining anthropological, art-historical, archaeological and museological approaches, SRU research and teaching are focused on the distinctive cultures of the three regions.
It has a particular focus on how artworks and objects are made, used and circulated – in effect, how they matter to people, both in their original contexts and in the contexts of museums and exhibitions.
As part of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at UEA the SRU contributes to a substantial and lively scholarly community in the Sainsbury Centre.
Our people
Events and News
Professor Sule Sani, from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, will be joining the Sainsbury Research Unit for four years on a British Academy Global Professorship. These Professorships are large investigator-led awards designed to attract established scholars to the UK to undertake ambitious, coherent and cutting-edge research in the humanities and social sciences. They aim to demonstrate and enhance the UK’s commitment to international research partnerships and collaboration, and to strengthen the UK’s research capacity and capability in the humanities and social sciences.
Building on his experience as a field archaeologist, educator and collections researcher, Professor Sule Sani will draw on archaeological, ethnographic, and archival data held in British and Nigerian museums to study large and under-researched collections from key Nigerian archaeological sites. He chose to be based at SRU – where he earned his doctoral degree in 2013 – in recognition of its world-leading expertise in the relevant fields, and he will also work with colleagues in the Sainsbury Centre and the British Museum. A postdoctoral researcher will be recruited over summer 2024 to help deliver project activities.
The Professorship inscribes itself in the line of recent studies that have explored the archives of archaeology and the archaeology of archives. It comes at a time of fervent public debate, and renewed academic interest, on the role of museums and of archaeological collections from Africa. High level scoping of the research value of collections in Jos, Zaria and Ibadan will identify their value for global archaeology, dealing with matters such as settlement and trade patterns, urbanism and political processes, and cultural identities. Such a use of museum collections as research data presents a departure from traditional approaches in Nigeria, making the project novel and timely. At the same time, the work will explore the long-standing intertwined research histories that link Nigerian and UK archaeologists.
The research will bring new understandings of African history and research histories, deploying the power of artefacts to tell aid public understanding of plural pasts and presents, and stimulate new ways of teaching. Exhibitions linked with activities in schools are planned at the Sainsbury Centre and at Jos Museum, Nigeria.
Professor Sule Sani’s Professorship will connect museology and archaeological practice and develop a model for the use of heritage to improve contemporary concerns and collaborative work. Building on Professor Sule Sani’s track record and UEA’s research, the Professorship will have a transformative impact on research agendas on both sides.
Links to Professor Sule Sani’s research:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=H8VDsp4AAAAJ&hl=en
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Abubakar-Sani-24
Other coverage:
https://guardian.ng/news/two-nigerian-professors-win-uks-global-professorships-awards/