This project, which ran from January to December 2009, was funded by The British Council. It was coordinated by Richard Smith, with Shelagh Rixon as co-investigator. Research assistance was provided by Sian Alsop, Seongsook Choi and Sheila Verrier.

As part of the overall Warwick ELT Archive enhancement programme, we aimed to systematically increase the stock of knowledge relating to UK-supported ELT projects undertaken in different parts of the world since the 1950s.

Outcomes of the project included a freely accessible, searchable Projects Database [currently inaccessible] and a Catalogue/Bibliography.

The background and specific aims were as follows:

"Project reports used to be housed within the British Council’s English Teaching Information Centre (ETIC) until this closed in the 1980s, but now such records as remain are dispersed and in danger of being disposed of. Without a systematic attempt to gather such records and to build a factual account of the projects that have been carried out in the past, lessons from past experience cannot be learned, and past work cannot be built on.

Accordingly, the project aimed to:

1. construct an overall database of projects (1950 onwards)

2. enhance the Warwick ELT Archive’s capacity to store and catalogue project reports and other archival material including unpublished project documentation; catalogue remaining stock of published materials; set up a database and cataloguing system for primary sources;

3. systematically catalogue existing and newly gathered Warwick ELT Archive holdings which relate to UK-funded projects, along with other primary sources in our collection;

4. construct a bibliography of project reports;

5. make available an outline factual record of UK-funded projects with which the British Council has been involved since 1950."

For outputs of the project, see links above ('Projects Database' and 'Catalogue / Bibliography')