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Provost to help protect Ukraine heritage amid Russia’s invasion
27 March 2026
Oriel College’s Provost announced as chair of Historic England advisory panel to support programme to protect Ukraine’s cultural heritage
Lord Mendoza, Provost of Oriel College, will chair an advisory board to support a Historic England programme to protect and restore Ukraine’s cultural heritage.
Historic England, an arms-length body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, received funding for the programme, which is set to run until 2029, as part of the government’s UK–Ukraine 100 Year Partnership.
The government funding, announced by arts minister Ian Murray in March, “marks the beginning of an important commitment to support protection of Ukrainian cultural heritage,” said Mendoza, who is the chair of Historic England.
“Historic England will work with colleagues nationally and in Ukraine to develop capacity-building that meets the pressing needs of Ukraine’s cultural workforce and to ensure Ukrainian heritage is protected, preserved and restored.”
The Historic England programme is funded through the DCMS International Cultural Heritage Protection fund and will provide “training for educational exchanges for cultural professionals,” according to the Historic England website.
Russian military aggression in Ukraine, Mendoza has added, “includes deliberate anti-soft power strategies to destroy Ukrainian culture in order to undermine, demoralise and extinguish national stories and national history.”
The role of Mendoza’s newly-announced advisory board will be to guide the programme’s development and delivery.
At the inaugural UK-Ukraine Culture Commission meeting at the National Gallery on 3 March, he a chaired a roundtable discussion with heritage professionals from both the UK and Ukraine.
“Ukrainian colleagues inspired us with their bravery, resolve and admirable good humour as they work to protect their nation’s heritage,” he commented.
Mendoza was appointed as the chair of Historic England in 2023.
He is also a member of the new Soft Power Council that was set up in 2025 to advise the government on its soft power strategy and to identify ways for Britain to harness its soft power assets to achieve other objectives such as security and growth.
Oriel College has supported two Ukrainian students whose studies were disrupted by war with graduate scholarships and has also contributed to the University of Oxford’s Refugee Academic Futures scholarship programme.