School of History, Classics and Archaeology
Scottish Centre for Diaspora Studies

The creation of the Centre was made possible by a generous benefaction of nearly £1 million from Mr and Mrs Alan Macfarlane, believed to be the largest single private donation ever made to a UK History School.  Their donation has helped inter alia to provide 2 doctoral scholarships in Scottish Diaspora Studies in perpetuity, research assistance and support for appropriate academic and public events in this field.

The objectives of the Centre are:

• Develop a high-quality critical mass of doctoral students in the history of the Scottish diasporas from medieval times to the present with special reference to their nature, origins and impact both at home and abroad.
  
• Establish a Scottish Diaspora strand in the School's MSc programmes to provide a pool of recruits for doctoral studies.
• Provide a focus and platform for external grant application to AHRC, Leverhulme and ESRC, in order to significantly extend the funding base created by the original endowment.
• Explore the possibility of interdisciplinary research and PhD training with other areas of the College of Humanities and Social Science.
• Organise conferences, symposia, seminars, workshops and public events related to the core interests of the Centre.
• Over time, develop research interests in non-Scottish diasporas to facilitate and encourage comparative analysis.
• Develop a group of scholars with cognate research interests to the Centre who can become affiliated staff.
• Establish meaningful research and scholarly relationships with centres for excellence in cognate fields word-wide.
• Become recognised within a five-year timeframe as the pre-eminent research centre for the historical study of the Scottish diaspora, a process of human mobility which has had significant effect on the histories of Northern Ireland, North America, the Caribbean, South Africa, Asia and Australasia.