The Colin Bell Award supports any archival, educational or research work undertaken on the papers of Sir Winston Churchill, the Second World War and other related collections within the Churchill Archives Centre. The award is made possible by Nigel Grimshaw, who has established it at Churchill College to honour Colin Bell DFC, a 104 year old veteran of the RAF in WW2. Nigel’s aim is to both honour Colin and ensure future generations can continue to research and learn more about 20th century history.
A special dinner was held to honour the 2025 Award recipient, Mizuki Yamamoto, for her paper “A study of British Government Policies Towards Political Radicalism: Foreign Intervention by Germany and the Rise of British Fascism”. Mizuki was joined by the Director of the Churchill Archives, Allen Packwood, Nigel Grimshaw, and representatives from Churchill College. A certificate commemorating Mizuki’s achievement was presented to her by Prof. Sharon Peacock, Master of Churchill College.
Mizuki’s research focused on the overseas support received by British fascists in the 1930s.
Of Mizuki’s work, Allen Packwood said ‘This lunch was a wonderful opportunity to hear first hand from Mizuki about her important work and to thank Nigel for making it all possible.’
The two new awards for 2026 are to:
1: Prof. Dr. Cristina Blanco Sío-López, FRHistS. Cristina is a Tenured Associate Professor at the University of La Coruña, Spain specialising in Contemporary European History with a focus on the European integration process. She is also an Affiliate at Cambridge Digital Humanities (CDH) and a Life Member at Clare Hall, the College of Advanced Studies at the University of Cambridge. In 2025 she received the ‘María Moliner’ Spanish National Research Award in the Humanities by the King of Spain and the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities.
The ‘Colin Bell’ Award 2026 by the Churchill Archives and the Churchill College at the University of Cambridge supports and recognises the original historical research of the project she directs on ‘Factors of Sustainable Peace: Art informing policy-making in European integration and cooperation from the interwar period to the present’. In a context increasingly dominated by overlapping factors of conflict and discrimination peace continues to be sought by democratic players through an emphasis on strategic and geopolitical analysis. By contrast, her project proposes a counterintuitive approach that recovers factors of sustainable peace reflected in artistic and cultural practices resulting in discursive and graphic Peace-scapes yet to be studied as innovative conceptual maps.Her research focuses on the Philip Noel-Baker papers at the Churchill Archives and sheds light on those collections addressing ‘Peace and Disarmament, 1908-1980’, peace debates in science and education and peace and human rights in international affairs throughout the 20th century. In this respect, she aspires to implement her motto of ‘looking back to see beyond’ by using critical historical analysis as a basis for a societal rethink of scenario design in peace-building and peace-keeping deeply rooted in overlooked fundamental rights and freedoms that archival research can help bring back to the fore.
2: Scott Ramsay. Scott is a theatre practitioner with over 35 years’ experience of creating and presenting work with UK companies, including Chester Gateway, the Edinburgh Festival, English Touring Theatre, Harlow Playhouse, the National Theatre, New Theatre Royal Portsmouth, Perth Theatre, Phoenix Dance Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Salisbury Playhouse, the BBC and Grampian TV.
The outcome of Scott’s research will be a new play ‘The Quiet Hero’, bringing to life a relatively unexplored figure from British 20th Century history – Admiral sir Bertram Ramsay, the naval architect of the Dunkirk evacuation and the D-Day armada. The Churchill Archives Centre holds Ramsay’s personal papers.”