Knowledge Exchange within the HERA Crisis Programme

Knowledge exchange is a core component of the HERA Crisis programme and reflects HERA’s long-standing commitment to impact, collaboration, and public engagement in the humanities. Through structured knowledge exchange activities, the programme supports meaningful interaction between researchers, funders, policymakers, and wider societal stakeholders across Europe.

All HERA-funded projects are required to develop clear plans for knowledge exchange and impact and to work with non-academic partners. These activities are designed to ensure that humanities research contributes to understanding and responding to contemporary and historical crises, while building sustainable relationships beyond the lifespan of individual projects.

Knowledge Exchange for Slow Hope (KESH)

To support this work, HERA has established a dedicated knowledge exchange programme entitled “Knowledge Exchange for Slow Hope” (KESH). Running for three and a half years, KESH brings together researchers, HERA funders, and external stakeholders from across Europe to support communication and collaboration, provide targeted training, and nurture strong cohort relationships.

The programme includes structured knowledge-sharing activities, critical skills development, and the creation of reflective spaces that enable participants to engage thoughtfully with complex and evolving crises. Two multinational conferences will bookend the duration of the funded projects, providing opportunities to consolidate learning and showcase research excellence.

KESH pursues three core objectives:

• To facilitate knowledge exchange across the project cohort, enhancing research impact and advocating for the voice of the humanities.
• To build skills and capacity across all projects, enabling effective responses to both anticipated and unanticipated crises.
• To establish sustainable networks of collaboration that will outlive the Crisis funding period and support the leveraging of additional resources.

Knowledge Exchange Facilitator

Professor Jenny Wüstenberg of Nottingham Trent University (United Kingdom) has been appointed as Knowledge Exchange Facilitator (KEF) for the HERA Crisis programme.

Professor Wüstenberg is Professor of History and Memory Studies at Nottingham Trent University, Chair of the Memory Studies Research Group in the Centre for Research in History, Heritage and Memory Studies, and Co-Chair of AIMS@NTU (Advancing Interdisciplinary Memory Studies). Her research focuses on the role of social movements and civil society in memory politics, as well as transnational and relational approaches to memory studies, with particular attention to how societies remember gradual and long-term developments such as family separation, democratisation, and environmental change.