The Greek Archaeological Committee UK turns forty, marked at Cyprus House by Professor Maria Iacovou and the patrons who have funded a generation of its scholars.
The Greek Archaeological Committee UK was founded in 1986 to fund postgraduate work in Hellenic archaeology at British universities, and 2026 is its fortieth year. In four decades it has carried more than eighty graduate archaeologists through to a higher degree in this country, which for a field this small is a substantial proportion of a generation. It is a committee rather than an institute: no building, no excavation of its own, only money placed where it does the most.
That model is unfashionable and unusually effective. A doctorate in Hellenic archaeology is expensive, poorly funded from the standard research councils, and takes years, so the difference between a career and an abandoned thesis is often a single grant arriving at the right moment. Forty years of those grants is what the evening is marking.
Professor Emerita Maria Iacovou of the University of Cyprus presents, joined by the Committee’s patrons and by the supervisors who have overseen its scholars. The Cultural Section of the Cyprus High Commission hosts it at Cyprus House on St James’s Square on Wednesday 2 December 2026, doors at half past six and two hours from seven, booked in advance. The Section programmes its own building throughout the year, free and open to anybody who books, and this is the December date in a programme that also runs film, lecture and exhibition evenings.