Memory and heritage play a key role in the negotiation of open societies, and in recent years, scholars in our Network have focused on the diversifying institutionalisation of historical representation, incorporating transnational and transcultural, as well as postimperial and decolonial approaches. 

We are currently a group of 80 researchers affiliated with the Network, many of whom are also connected to existing platforms within IOS, such as Contesting Governance, Gender, Diversity, and Global Justice, Futures of Democracy and Open Cities. We bring together researchers from different faculties and practitioners, artists, and policymakers, to explore the possibilities for, and challenges to, genuinely interdisciplinary work and cross-disciplinary exchange to increase the visibility of scholarship on memory and heritage at Utrecht University and beyond, and to offer our expertise on memory and heritage concerns as they arise in public affairs and contemporary debates.