A challenge to protect and defend history education

In March 2026 the British government published its policy paper on community cohesion: Protecting What Matters: Towards a more confident, cohesive and resilient United Kingdom. The paper asserts that ‘throughout our history, the UK’s ability to withstand external challenges has been underpinned by a strong social fabric’. It goes on to state that this social fabric is partly reliant on a shared, critical and inclusive understanding of the past. It follows that the study of history is not merely an intellectual pursuit but a civic obligation, essential to the maintenance of a reflective, resilient and democratic society. 

History helps us understand the world we live in. The skills learnt through the study of the past such as finding and assessing evidence, weighing different positions and analyses, and constructing an argument based on the use of accurate and searchable evidence, are vital to life in an age of social and digital media. In schools and universities, in the UK and elsewhere, history students are acquiring tools that will help them to navigate this complex and challenging information terrain now and in the future.   

History contributes to individual and collective wellbeing, alleviating social isolation and connecting people to one another.  As the Social Prescribing Foundation argues, ‘engaging with local history fosters pride, strengthens local identity and builds resilience.’  Historic England have shown how engagement with historical sites supports mental wellbeing.  

And yet opportunities to learn the skills of historical practice are disappearing at an alarming rate. Those who teach or research the history that underpins social cohesion now face repeated challenges as funding and jobs are cut. Resources are focused in an ever-decreasing number of institutions, and school pupils and university students are encouraged to focus on apparently more practical and applied subjects.   

This is a structural problem. A funding crisis in higher education means that some 45% of UK institutions are predicted to be in deficit in 2025-26 (OFS). Many have reacted by cutting humanities courses, and so – as the British Academy’s Cold Spots research shows – deprive students in regions across the UK of a chance to study their chosen subject. History teacher training is also in crisis. If the depletion of history teaching and research continues, the skills, knowledge and understanding that so many enjoy today may not be available to future generations. Recent decades have brought a welcome democratisation of history, but we risk a future where historical skills become the preserve of an elite.  

What then is to be done? The government acknowledges the importance of history to social cohesion, and multiple studies demonstrate its wider value. Yet a lack of funding threatens to undermine the historical practice, knowledge and skills that are necessary for the history so many of us relish and benefit from. Likewise, a failure to acknowledge the craft and training required for history – and in turn for healthy societies – diminishes the expertise of those, in our universities and schools, who deepen our understanding of the past.  

Our four organisations work together to advocate for and support history, modelling effective collaboration through programmes that support applied history, provide opportunities for early career scholars to share their research with wider publics, and offer training and engage with curriculum reform. In 2027 we are planning a nationwide Festival of History that will showcase the vibrancy and value of academic-community collaboration. But we cannot do this alone. We need the help of our communities, as well as those many non-historians who, while valuing history’s contributions, need to better support those who teach and research. Advocacy for history, and action to demonstrate its value, is the responsibility of every one of us. 

If the government is serious in its stated aim of strengthening the social contract, it needs to act now to support and sustain the study and practice of history across all sectors of education, in communities and in public discourse. If we are to collectively ‘protect what matters’, we challenge educational leaders, policy makers and politicians to protect and defend history. 

Claire Langhamer, Director of the Institute of Historical Research 
Lucy Noakes and Philip Carter, President and Director of the Royal Historical Society 
Antonio Sennis and Sarah Holland, Co-chairs of History UK 
Alexandra Walsham and Rebecca Sullivan, President and CEO of the Historical Association