Welcome to the u3a research database
This database supports research and learning of u3a in the UK by collating and making available details of projects undertaken by u3a, mostly locally, either on their own initiative, or as part of studies conducted by academic institutions, or jointly with other organisations. The database is itself a learning project, originally set up in 2015/16 and now in its second version. There are currently 1086 projects recorded in the database. You can search by project description by clicking on the spyglass at the top of pages or going straight to this page. There are other options for browsing the database from here.
To submit details of a project for inclusion in the database, either contact the administrator or use this form.
Current and Recent projects
Their Finest Hour
u3a members around the country have been contributing to “Their Finest Hour”, an online digital archive (funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, based at the University of Oxford) of the everyday stories and objects of the Second World War. On 6 June 2024, the free online archive was launched at http://theirfinesthour.org/ as part of the commemorations for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. u3a members have kept alive important memories of the Second World War by volunteering for digital collection days.
Alun Edwards, the lead volunteer for the project, has written a comprehensive report highlighting the way u3a members might have benefited from participating in Their Finest Hour. You can download the report here: https://bit.ly/TFHu3aEdwardsAlun
Family Photos and Family Histories
This project is led jointly by Leeds and Royal Holloway universities and explores the way families document their lives and experiences through personal photography. You can email learning@u3a.org.uk to find out more.
Inheriting the Family
Inheriting the Family is another proposal, following on from Family Histories and Family Photos, and it will start in 2024. It is at the early stages of planning right now, and will involve gathering and creatively interpreting those tales handed down in our families, from all aspects of daily life. See Jennifer Simpson’s example left, based on a photo of her mother cycling, using fabrics embroidered or worn by her mother. More news of this project will be circulated as it becomes available.
Astronomy network
A national u3a network has been set up for members interested in astronomy and spaceflight. It is hoped it will become an online 'club' where members can share information. Given the breadth of the subject area, the work and the supporting site are broken down into separate topics such as cosmology, astronomy, space missions and exploration, the night sky and the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.
English language teaching for Ukrainians
Thornbury u3a has set up and run English language teaching for Ukrainian refugees in the area. The opportunity to do this arose because a local member has a TEFL qualification and there are facilities (including halls for teaching) and other support for refugees in the area. The project was so successful that it has been taken over by the local council's learning services department. The u3a are continuing to support by providing classes in conversational English.
Judgements and cognitive abilities
Members of London u3a are working with Oxford University on a study about how we make judgements about other people’s personalities, cognitive abilities and thoughts. Research data is taken from participants online and involves answering questions after watching videos produced by the study designers.
Danish influence on the English language
Three midlands-based u3a, Northampton, Kimber and Stourbridge, are working together on a project exploring the "Danish Creolisation of English" hypothesis, examining how the persistent influence of Danish language patterns affected changes in English hundreds of years after the end of the Danelaw in England.
High Street Project
This large project started in September 2020 and has three tiers of activity: surveying local shopping streets, taking photos, and identifying a local idea or ideas to explore further.
Participants take photos from their local High Street and upload these to a central website where they are collated and displayed. This enables members to trace both recent and longer term changes and supports involvement with local Neighbourhood Plans as well as gathering reminiscences of the shops of our childhood, art, and sketching and making guided walks.
U3a in the Time of Corona
In April 2020, Subject advisers Jo Livingston and Jennifer Simpson began gathering diary entries from u3a members around the UK. This ‘Diary Project’ resulted in a book, ‘u3a in the Time of Corona’, drawn from members’ contributions describing what turned out to be the first lockdown in 2020. It includes efforts to get a supermarket delivery and how to manage without a haircut, as well as how our members filled all that spare time and tried to keep the u3a going. After the first print run sold out, a second printing has been done and can be bought for £10 from this link Diary Book
Our 1901 Postal Pensioners led by Kings College London
In October 2020, 47 U3A members from South West England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland started working towards a collective biography of 96 pensioners who retired from the Post Office in 1901, the first year that a full census is available for England, Scotland, and Ireland. Listen to the podcast Postal Pensioners Podcast on the British Association for Local History website, Series 1 episode 9. U3a get a great mention from 27 mins onwards!
The project began in October 2020 and finished in May 2021.
As well as leading, guiding and collating the research, the team from
KCL also arranged a season of lunchtime talks for u3a members via
Zoom. These talks were extremely well attended and greatly
appreciated by u3a members.
Happiness across the Ages
Lessons and tips from a collaborative, intergenerational, interdisciplinary research project on happiness devised by Exeter University and Exeter u3a
As well as background and a description of the project, the booklet contains a useful toolkit that can be applied to all project planning and implementation
Download the Booklet Happiness Project
Guardian Foundation Pitman Diaries transcription project – from article by Margaret Derrick
The Guardian Shorthand Project officially finished at the end of 2020. It involved translating the shorthand diaries of the Guardian’s Africa Correspondent from the 1960s, which is a very specialised skill set! Despite the lockdown arriving in the opening months of the project, the u3a volunteers made great inroads into this area of research and many have decided to continue with it in their own right.
Cary Ellison Theatre programmes
Cary Ellison was a talent spotter who worked for Spotlight magazine and as part of his work he went on twice yearly tours of repertory performances around the country in order to find up and coming actors, directors and plays. The programmes of these productions, heavily annotated by Ellison, are now at Kingston University. U3a members researched the places visited by Cary Ellison around the UK and expanded the detail of Kingston’s contextual knowledge for the Cary Ellison collection.