
Arts & Humanities Alliance
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About
Mission
The Arts and Humanities Alliance is a UK organisation that represents the broad span of Arts and Humanities subject associations and learned societies. The AHA exists to facilitate the exchange of views between subject associations and provide a coordinated voice with which to articulate the collective values and concerns of our disciplines to policy makers and public bodies. AHA currently represents nearly 50 associations with a combined membership of more than 20,000.
History
The Alliance was initially formed as the Arts and Humanities User Group (A-HUG) in 2008. It first emerged out of a joint intervention by the Council of University Classical Departments, the British Philosophical Association and the Society of Legal Scholars, when they voiced their collective concerns to the AHRC about the European Science Foundation’s European Research Index in the Humanities (ERIH). In its first years A-HUG’s role was principally to co-ordinate subject association meetings with one another and with the AHRC. Working across a range of subject associations we successfully encouraged the AHRC to withdraw from involvement with ERIH.
Our Work
Over time, we have addressed concerns such as: changes in RCUK and AHRC funding policies, REF and impact, open access, recruitment trends, graduate funding, and the status of British International Research Institutes. In 2016, the Alliance submitted a response to the Green Paper on Higher Education entitled 'Fulfilling our Potential'. It is currently represented on the UUK Open Access Monographs Subgroup and is centrally involved in the British Academy Flagship Skills Project. In all these areas AHA articulates and defends the specific needs and practices of the arts and humanities.
Past Coordinators
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Susan Bruce, University English and Martin Halliwell, English Association (2016-2018)
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Peter Mandler, Royal Historical Society (2012-2016)
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Robin Osborne, Council of University Classical Departments (2008-2012)

AFFILIATES
African Studies Association of the UK
Architectural Humanities Research Association
Association of Adaptation Studies
Association for German Studies
Association for Publishing Education
Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland
Association of University Professors and Heads of French
British Association for American Studies
British Association for Applied Linguistics
British Association for Chinese Studies
British Association for Jewish Studies
British Association for Korean Studies
British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies
British Association for the Study of Religions
British Society for the History of Science
British Society for Middle Eastern Studies
British Philosophical Association
Council for British Archaeology
Council of University Classics Departments
National Association of Writers in Education
Philological Society of Great Britain
Society for Latin American Studies
Society for Old Testament Study
Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
Standing Conference of University Drama Departments
Theology and Religious Studies UK
UK Council of Area Studies Associations
UK Association for Language Testing and Assessment
If you represent a learned society that is not yet a member, please contact t.pitman@leeds.ac.uk to join. Membership is free. We hold one meeting per semester, run events and campaigns, and coordinate action via a jiscmail list and a WhatsApp group. You can also follow us on Twitter @ArtsandHums.

Activities
AHA News
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Read our recent letter to the Australian Catholic University about planned redundancies there in arts and humanities, September 2023.
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Our most recent affiliates meeting was held online, 10:00-12:00, 9 June 2023. Our next meeting will be in Autumn 2023 (date tbc).
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We are currently developing a new toolkit to help strengthen arts and humanities departments around the country.
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We are currently consulting on the appointment of a small group of AHA Ambassadors to help promote the organisation and the disciplines we represent.
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We are committed to drafting a Constitution for the AHA by Autumn 2023.
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We have worked hard in 2023 to set up the new website that you are reading now. We would like to express our gratitude to all affiliated societies that kindly donated to support the design of the new site.
AHA Statements & Correspondence
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AHA letter to Australian Catholic University re planned redundancies - 20 September 2023
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AHA statement on "low value" degrees - 21 July 2023
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AHA letter to University of East Anglia to protest redundancies in American Studies - 13 Feb 2022
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AHA letter to Dominic Raab MP regarding funding for the British Council – 10 June 2020
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Plan S Consultation Response – 10 Jan 2019
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Brexit statement – 3 Dec 2018
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AHA statement on vetoing of Australian Research Council grants - 6 Nov 2018
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AHA letter to British Academy re BA Institutes & Societies – Feb 2016 (and BA response)
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AHA response to Green Paper consultation, Fulfilling Our Potential' – 2015
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Academy of Social Sciences presentation to AHA – Nov 2014

Resources
News
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JUST PUBLISHED: Future Research Assessment Programme report. Please contact us with any feedback you may have about the report.
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JUST PUBLISHED: Higher Education Policy Institute report: The Humanities in the UK Today: What's Going On?, by Marion Thain, with Susan Fitzmaurice, Jo Gill, Jeremy Gregory, Nigel Harkness, Gail Marshall, Murray Pittock and Andrew Thorpe.
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JUST PUBLISHED: British Academy report on English Studies Provision in UK Higher Education.
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NEW PROJECT: Mapping UK Arts & Humanities Research Infrastructure, AHRC sponsorted project led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Forthcoming online information events: Tuesday 27 June, 14:00-15:00 & Tuesday 4 July, 16:00-17:00.
Toolkits
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The following organisations have all recently developed useful toolkits to help academics and departments defend themselves from threatened closures and redundancies. They also help focus attention on developing more positive narratives around A&H:
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Study the Humanities, an initiative of the National Humanities Alliance Foundation, serves to strengthen humanities recruitment efforts across the USA. It has produced the Study the Humanities Toolkit
Other Resources
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The British Academy has recently coined the acronym SHAPE - Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy/Environment - as a way of making the arts, humanities and social sciences more instantly meaningful to policy makers and the general public. Their website contains lots of useful resources in relation to this ambition.
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The Scottish Arts and Humanities Alliance (SAHA) is a joint initiative of Scottish Higher Education institutions, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities. Established in 2019, it aims to give a public and collective voice to the Arts and Humanities in the context of Higher Education in Scotland, promoting more widely the contribution of arts and humanities disciplines to positive change in society, to economic progress and to cultural understanding.

Contact
The co-chairs of the AHA for 2022-25 are
Professor Emma Cayley
(University Council of Modern Languages)
e.cayley@leeds.ac.uk
Professor Thea Pitman
(Society for Latin American Studies)
t.pitman@leeds.ac.uk
Follow us on Twitter @ArtsandHums
