In 2025/26, University of Glasgow student Rachel Wade is doing an undergraduate Applied Dissertation. This includes a placement at the Ballast Trust working with the Business Archives Surveying Officer and Ballast Trust Archivist. Rachel is producing academic research with use of the SWI core archives as primary sources to evidence women’s interwar political engagement. This includes the SWRI meeting minutes 1929-1933, the Scottish Home and Country magazines, and zooms in on Catherine Blair’s personal correspondence as a valuable case study.
In addition to this academic research, Rachel has produced a record-keeping guide as the practical project output, and contributed to the SWI Heritage Project group by writing two articles for SWI members explaining her process and findings. This guide provides an outline and detailed list of key records for SWI institutes to use when handling their records, and encourages co-operation with local archives to assist with storage, appraisals, digitisation etc. 
This project has produced valuable insight into the location and condition of existing SWI collections, uncovered by a process of mapping online databases (TNA and Archives Hub) and in-person visits to archives (Perth and Kinross Archives and John Gray Centre). Communication with a range of archivists in local archives across Scotland (from Argyll and Bute to Stirling) revealed current cataloguing developments with SWI materials, which have benefited from the National Heritage Lottery Fund from 2024.
Further information about Rachel’s research of the SWI archive can be found in this article, “Preserving SWI Archives to reveal its unprecedented political history”