The Impact of Diasporas on the Making of Britain is a major multidisciplinary research programme being funded by The Leverhulme Trust.  The overall aim of the project is to conduct research into the impact of ancient diasporas on the cultural and population history of Britain and how these events have shaped identities in the British Isles both in the past and in the present. What makes the programme unique is that its principal purpose is to bring together the expertise from a number of different disciplines in order to create a fuller picture of the complex origins of the British people.

The programme is driven by six linked projects incorporating some of the latest research in genetics, computer simulations, cross-generational ‘social remembering’, linguistic variation in Early Anglo-Saxon England, the impact of Anglo-Saxon and Viking diasporas on early English dialects and place names and ideas of home and homelands versus exile, exclusion and foreignness. Each project seeks to combine information and methodologies from two or more of the following disciplines: history, onomastics, linguistics, social psychology, genetics, or archaeology. Its geographical and chronological focus is Britain in the first millennium AD but the individual projects may range more widely than this in seeking to understand patterns in the evidence. 

The Programme is based at the University of Leicester, and draws on additional expertise from the Institute for Name Studies at the University of Nottingham. It runs for 5 years from January 2011, and includes provision for the employment of five post-doctoral Research Associates, each for a period of up to four years, beginning in October 2011.  The RAs will be employed concurrently, and will work closely with the Research Team, comprising a Project Manager (Dr Turi King) and permanent academic staff from the Universities of Leicester and Nottingham.