UHI Orkney secures funding for new state of the art laboratory

Image (Scott Timpany showing visitors Viking barley grains at a pop-up lab environmental archaeology lab in Rousay.)

Plans have been approved by Orkney Islands Council for the Archaeology Institute at UHI Orkney to establish a new environmental archaeology laboratory. 

The Council’s Policy and Resources committee approved a plan for the redevelopment of existing UHI Orkney assets into a state-of-the-art facility known as the Archaeology and the Environment Science (AEonS) facility – one of only two in the UK. 

It has been funded by a UK Research and Innovation Council  (UKRI). The grant comes from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Research Infrastructure for Conservation and Heritage Science (RICHeS) funding programme from an overall grant award of nearly £1.6million. 

The laboratories will enable the advanced processing of biological materials recovered from archaeological sites, such as ancient soils and sediments, crucial to understanding the past. 

The facility will also be complemented by a mobile laboratory that will support environmental archaeology in the field, within Orkney and the wider Highlands & Islands, as well as offering community outreach by travelling to schools and community events. 

The AEonS facility will be filling a major research need, not only in the Highlands & Islands Region but within the UK and will complement the existing UHI Orkney environmental archaeology lecturing staff and research students.  

Although based in Orkney, it will allow access for visiting researchers, commercial units, UHI students and partners. 

Councillor Gwenda Shearer, Chair of Education, Leisure and Housing, said: 

“The AEONS facility is a really exciting development for the UHI Archaeology Institute. This funding gives us opportunities we simply didn’t have before — from new scientific techniques to fresh partnerships that can deepen our understanding of Orkney’s past. It opens the door to so many possibilities, and we can’t wait to see what discoveries come from it.” 

Professor Ingrid Mainland, of the UHI Archaeology institute, said: 

“Environmental archaeology contributes to our understanding of natural environmental changes and human impact in the past and in looking forward through researching subjects such as biodiversity change, sustainability, economic strategies, rewilding and futureproofing natural resources. However, across the UK expertise and facilities for environmental archaeology research are diminishing, which may lead to generational gaps in this area and a national inability to take such research forward in the future." 

“The AEONS facility has been established to meet these needs and ensure that skills gaps and shortages are met to provide a sustainable future for Scotland in Environmental Archaeology” 

Further background:

AEonS is a partnership between UHI Orkney, Orkney Museums, Historic Environment Scotland (HES), Glasgow University, Archaeology Scotland, the Scotland’s Coastal Archaeology and the Problem of Erosion (SCAPE) team based at St Andrew’s University, and the University of Southampton with UHI Orkney being the lead partner. 

The RICHeS programme was launched in October 2024 and saw £80million in investment into innovation and research that will support the purchase of scientific equipment and technology to safeguard heritage for future generations. 

So far thirty-one heritage science projects across the UK have shared £37 million from the first round of funding through the programme, with a total of 144 project partners involved.