Teaching and research support

A core element of the work we do is to draw upon our collections, containing many unique primary sources and diverse materials, to support teaching, learning and research. Find out more about some of the ways we do this and opportunities available to teachers, students and researchers.

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Teaching support

With its wide range of subjects, materials and media, the archives and special collections play a strong role in supporting teaching both within and beyond the University of Surrey.

Through our in-depth collection knowledge and professional expertise we are able to engage with users in a variety of ways.

Learning support

For many students their first experience of using archives will be when they come to university. The “special” nature of archive sources as opposed to digital or library resources can seem daunting at first. Our staff are experienced at helping make our collections accessible and usable and will support you in searching our catalogue, handling fragile materials, learning how to reference archive sources and contextualising them as part of your broader studies.

We encourage students to make an appointment to visit our Archives Research Room, and have also created online resources to support the use of archives and special collections.

One-to-one sessions with students

We are experienced in working with undergraduate and postgraduate students to help them to develop their ideas for research projects based on our collections; as such we can offer 1:1 Research Room appointments for students, to enable them to discuss their dissertation proposals or research projects and discover what resources are available to support their work.

Research support and collaboration

Our archives contain unique primary sources which offer immense scope for academic research across disciplines and at various levels. Many of our collections are relatively unexplored which means they offer plenty of potential for new discoveries. If you are interested in finding out more or have detected areas of our collections that could be helpful to your research please contact us at archives@surrey.ac.uk. Our team are able to help support your research from initial ideas through to publication.

We are also keen to collaborate on research proposals drawing on our collections and can provide support and guidance on developing such proposals. If you have a research idea the best place to start is by exploring our online catalogue and then contact us at archives@surrey.ac.uk to discuss your ideas further. Please note that the level of engagement that we can offer will depend on other departmental commitments.