Best of CASE Europe Region Award
 

Institution: University of Cambridge

Title of entry: Legacies of Enslavement

About this entry: The University of Cambridge is an 800-year-old public university, which held a two-year inquiry into how it may have benefited from the transatlantic slave trade of the 17th-19th centuries.

The Legacies of Enslavement Inquiry’s concluding report followed on the heels of the Black Lives Matter protests, a discussion about returning Benin Bronzes held at the University to Nigeria, a public court case over the historic benefaction of an investor in the slave trade and as the University continues to increase its efforts to widen participation and access for students from Black, Asian and other ethnic minorities.

In order to offer students, staff, alumni, policymakers, and the donor community who support the University’s academic and research mission a clear and unambiguous message about the report and the University’s entanglements with slavery, the Office of External Affairs and Communications (OEAC) devised an approach to promote an objective narrative in the news media that would inspire pride in its alumni, students and staff, motivate funders to give to the priorities which sprang from the report, and encourage a widely diverse community of prospective students and staff to consider Cambridge as an academic and research destination.

The approach included the creation of a video interviewing selected stakeholders in the University, behind the scenes discussions with influential external stakeholders, a feature story for the University's website, social media posts, a press release to targeted journalists and a carefully constructed embargo with two news agencies.