{"id":4673,"date":"2024-09-23T15:06:19","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T14:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/digitalholocaustmemory\/?p=4673"},"modified":"2024-10-16T15:52:48","modified_gmt":"2024-10-16T14:52:48","slug":"building-a-digital-holocaust-memory-lab-part-2-defining-our-values","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/digitalholocaustmemory\/2024\/09\/23\/building-a-digital-holocaust-memory-lab-part-2-defining-our-values\/","title":{"rendered":"Building a Digital Holocaust Memory Lab, Part 2: \u00a0Defining Our Values"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Part 2 of our \u2018Building a Lab\u2019 series, our director Victoria explains how we\u2019re establishing ourselves as a research team, moving beyond our objectives and outcomes to focus on the values that inform who we are, how we work, and how we\u2019ll go about achieving them.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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It is not very often, in academia, that you get the opportunity to \u2018start from scratch\u2019. The launch of the Landecker Digital Memory Lab this year, however, has allowed us to break the mould.

Building a new team from the ground up means we\u2019ve had the chance to start by thinking about who we are as a team and what values we want to underpin our work over the next five years \u2013in terms of how we work together and with others, and our outputs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mission statement of the Lab was set in our project proposal: to ensure the Holocaust sector is better equipped for the digital age. <\/strong>Our work now was to inform this ambitious goal with core values and a clear vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the first few weeks, I led an intensive induction programme for the Lab\u2019s new team to bring us all together and ensure everyone played a role in defining these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first important question for us was to establish ‘where are we?’ Whilst we are a unique, international research Lab, we are still fundamentally a part of the University of Sussex \u2013 so there\u2019s no point reinventing the wheel entirely when considering our identity. The values across the Faculty of Media, Arts and Humanities, the globally respected Sussex Digital Humanities Lab and Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies, and the wider university community speak to our ethos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, the faculty\u2019s building blocks of creativity, critical thinking, scientific rigour, and a desire to be curiosity-driven are also the key elements that drive us. And the tenets of the wider university\u2019s strategy reflect our focus on digital and data futures, human flourishing, and environmental sustainability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, when it came to defining our values in terms of our aims, we wanted to think more broadly about positioning the Lab within wider research and heritage cultures. Essentially, what are we trying to achieve for the people we are trying to serve?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve agreed to produce a set of concrete outputs, and we\u2019ve already started work on their design. From the outset, I was sure that everything we create must be informed by these four tenets:<\/p>\n\n\n\n