Acknowledgements

 

Curious Edinburgh is a University of Edinburgh project, developed by Niki Vermeulen and team based at Science, Technology and Innovation Studies of the School of Social and Political Science. Inspired by the history of science walking tours conducted for many years by emeritus Professor in the history of science John Henry, Niki established the project in collaboration with Dominic Berry (now at the University of Birmingham) and Bill Jenkins (now at the University of St Andrews) and numerous collaborators listed below. Niki is now working with Kate Bowell and Matjaz Vidmar, with technical support from Stratos Filalithis (LTW) and Emily Elliott and Ian Fieldhouse (EDINA). You can get in contact with us via email at Niki.Vermeulen@ed.ac.uk

We are extremely grateful to Melissa Highton, director of Learning, Teaching and Web Services (LTW) for valuing our project and giving it a place in the UoE infrastructure. The EDINA team’s technical wizardry made this project possible, and especially Nicola Osborne (now working with Creative Informatics). Cate Sutton is responsible for the logo design and Amy Woodgate, University of Edinburgh MOOCs Project Manager for help with editing the videos.

Curious Edinburgh is part of the Center for Data, Culture and Society’s Digital Cultural Heritage cluster and won the 2017 Tam Dalyell Prize for Excellence in Engaging the Public with Science. You can watch the prize lecture about the development of the project here.

We would like to thank the following individuals and organisations for their invaluable help with this project:

  • John Henry, for providing information and advice and for kindly agreeing to let us use video recordings of his history of science walking tour.
  • Clare Button of Edinburgh University Library for the ‘history of genetics and biotechnology’ tour.
  • Alasdair McLean, who gave us a great deal of help with the ‘Scottish Enlightenment’ tour.
  • John Martin and the Scottish Brewing Archive Association for developing the Brewing History tour.
  • Hannah Holtschneider of the Research Network in Jewish Studies for composing the Jewish History tour.
  • Roger Jeffery and Hauke Wiebes of the Edinburgh India Institute for the development of the India tours.
  • The granton:hub and Gina Fierlafijn Reddie for making the Granton tour.
  • Lucy Ridley and EVOC for the development of the tour on the history of charity and civic action.
  • Ellen Stewart, Sophie Buijssen, Lothian Health Services Archives (LHSA) and the Edinburgh Future Institute (EFI) for contributions to the hospital tour.  
  • UncoverED and Daisy Chamberlain for the UncoverED tour.
  • Wezi Mhura and artists and Nasar Meer from RACE.ED for the BLM mural trail.
  • Anna Kuslits, Thoko Kamwendo, Raj Bhopal and colleagues of the Usher Institute for the development of the Public Health tour.

We have enjoyed working together with the following organisations:

From the University of Edinburgh we would like to thank: Thomas Ahnert, Bill Aird, Lawrence Dritsas, Julian Goodare, Miguel Garcia-Sancho, Anna Groundwater, Zubin Mistry, Dmitriy Myelnikov, Alasdair Raffe, Richard Rogers, Rick Sowerby, Steve Sturdy, and others from the history of science and medicine network who generously shared their knowledge with us; Patricia Erskine from the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; James Smith, Professor of African and Development Studies and Vice-Principal International; Principals Timothy O’Shea and Peter Mathieson; Chris Speed, Ed Hollis and Karen Forbes of Edinburgh College of Art; Jo Spiller and Susan Greig from Information Services at the University of Edinburgh; Lorna Brain and the University Festival’s team who organised the Tam Dalyell Prize lecture.

Full information on images used on this site and in the app are listed on our Image Credits page

Funding

This project is supported by a variety of funding sources, including an Innovation Initiative Grant from the Edinburgh Fund, an AHRC cultural engagement project (with James Loxley, Richard Roger, Jonathan Silvertown and Morna Findlay), the Principal’s Teaching Award Scheme (PTAS) of the Institute for Academic Development, as well as support from Science, Technology and Innovation Studies (STIS) and the School of Social and Political Science (SSPS) of the University of Edinburgh.

We would like to especially thank Anne Valentine (STIS) for help keeping track of all our funding sources, and Anne-Sofie Laegran (Knowledge exchange manager) for helping us to acquire funding.