Living with Machines Delivery Plan version 1, 2019

Abstract

• Living with Machines is a five-year collaborative project. It aims to generate new perspectives on the effects of the mechanisation of labour on the lives of ordinary people in Britain during the 'long nineteenth century' (c.1780-1918), by developing computational and historical techniques and research questions for working with historical sources. This document contains the project's first 'Delivery Plan', a formal document that defines the project management processes used to execute and control the project. We have published it in response to interest from a range of sources about how we set up a project of this sort. This first version was drawn up at the start of the project, before the full team was in place. It was updated in March 2019, a few months after the project's official start date. This preamble was largely written in January 2020. On this project we regard the Delivery Plan as a living document that has been, and will continue to be, updated as the project progresses. Subsequent versions will also be deposited. This project, funded by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Strategic Priority Fund (SPF), is a multidisciplinary collaboration delivered by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), with The Alan Turing Institute, the British Library, the University of Cambridge, the University of East Anglia, Exeter University, and Queen Mary University of London. Established in 2018, the SPF builds on Sir Paul Nurse’s vision of a ‘common fund’, to support high quality multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research programmes, which could have otherwise been missed through traditional funding channels. Living with Machines was one of the projects selected in the first phase of this funding, and therefore had few UK-models to look to for models of how to plan and deliver a project of this size and disciplinary breadth.