ITP Research Grant 2025 report!!

Written by Amelia Kedge, International Training Programme Coordinator (Legacy Projects)

In 2025 we were delighted to award an ITP Research Grant to Demetra Ignatiou, Curator, Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation (Cyprus, ITP 2025).

Demetra used her grant to return to the British Museum to conduct a series of focus groups with members of the Cypriot diaspora to inform her research for her paper “From Cyprus to the British Museum: Community-Led Reflections on Cultural Identity and Display” which she presented at the conference The Ancient Mediterranean and the British Museum: Pasts and Futures in February 2026.

The focus group sessions encouraged participants to critically reflect on the current display of the British Museum’s Cyprus collection, and revealed varying perspectives shaped by personal histories, collective and individual identities, and approaches to the museum as an institution and the collection as an exhibit. A common thread in the discussion was the desire for more inclusive and multi-vocal interpretations of Cypriot heritage, alongside an urge for contextualisation of objects beyond conventional archaeological frameworks.

The findings of this research were developed into paper co-authored with Dr Ersin Hussein and presented on 27 February 2026 as part of the conference at the British Museum.

We were delighted to be able to support Demetra with her research, and to share her report which can be read HERE.