Two academics from the University of Southampton’s School of Humanities receive prestigious Leverhulme Award

Dr Georgia Andreou , Lecturer in Archaeology & Sustainability, and Dr Callan Davies , Lecturer in Seventeenth-Century Literature and Culture, have been awarded the Leverhulme Trust’s Philip Leverhulme Prize , which recognises outstanding early-career researchers whose work has already achieved international impact.

Each prize is worth £100,000 and can be used to support any aspect of the recipient’s research. With only up to 30 prizes awarded annually, it is a notable achievement for both academics, and the University of Southampton’s School of Humanities, highlighting the wide-ranging research activity undertaken in Southampton’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities.

Dr Georgia Andreou’s award will support a major new research initiative, The Politics of Sustainability in Heritage in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), which aims to critically examine the foundations of sustainability in archaeology, an increasingly vital yet under-explored area in global climate and heritage policy. The project will explore how historical perceptions of ancient environments shape modern sustainability narratives. Building on Dr Andreou’s fieldwork and publications across Cyprus, Palestine, and Oman, the project will expand on research into the impacts of extreme sea-level events and other climate phenomena in regions at the frontline of climate change.

Dr Callan Davies’ research will shed light on the history and cultural legacy of Shakespearean theatre, with a focus on the recently excavated Curtain playhouse in Shoreditch. The work will support a forthcoming book, Curtain: The Story of a Shakespearean Playhouse , under contract with Yale University Press, and a documentary edition of archival records. The funding will also enable Dr Davies to explore the histories and afterlives of other major playhouses through a new project, The Death of the Playhouse . His work aims to reimagine how we write the histories of places, highlighting pre-modern practices of reuse and transformation, while making the enduring influence of these venues on culture, planning, and heritage more accessible to a wider audience.