Almost £1 million of taxpayer cash is being spent on compiling an archive of African films in a ‘reparatory justice’ project.

The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) is paying £850,000 for scholars to explore Africa’s ‘audiovisual heritage’.

A further £250,000 is being provided by Oxford, King’s College and Liverpool universities, which are leading the work.

One of the focuses will be films about ‘decolonisation’ of African countries and exploration of anti-colonial movements.

Scholars also aim to ‘repatriate’ footage currently kept in the ‘Global North’ so that it can be more easily seen by people in Africa.

They will take the archives on tour in Africa to ‘sites of encounter with young African creatives’.

It comes following a long-running campaign at Oxford to tear down a statue of the British Imperialist Cecil Rhodes by those who want 'decolonisation' of the university.

The project also comes at a time when public funding is tight.

Almost £1 million of taxpayer cash is been spent on compiling an archive of African films in a 'reparatory justice' project (pictured: students marching in a 2020 anti-colonialism protest at Oxford, which is taking part in the research)

AHRC, which hands out £70 million a year in grants, is a subsidiary of UK Research Innovation (UKRI) which is funded by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

The three universities are funded by a mixture of Government grants, taxpayer-provided tuition fee loans and some private cash.

Last night, Professor Anthony Glees, politics expert at Buckingham University, said: ‘They are funding this project for cynical political reasons. They are beyond woke.

‘It looks very like they’re trying to use the money to appease the “Rhodes Must Fall” campaigners, building on the idea of systematic racism in British institutions and the UK’s former African colonies.

‘Using films to make a political point and getting almost £1 million for doing so is hardly a sensible use of money when there’s so little of it, especially in some universities.’

William Yarwood at the TaxPayers' Alliance added: ‘At a time when families are being squeezed from every angle, pouring almost £1 million into an academic project involving “decolonisation film archives” is staggeringly out of touch.

‘AHRC's funding record increasingly looks like a conveyor belt for activist scholarship that delivers no meaningful benefit to British taxpayers. AHRC should be defunded and abolished.’

The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) is paying £850,000 for scholars to explore Africa's 'audiovisual heritage' (pictured: Oxford professor Dan Hodgkinson, who is part of the research team and has campaigned on 'decolonisation')

It comes following a long-running campaign at Oxford to tear down a statue of the British Imperialist Cecil Rhodes (pictured) by those who want 'decolonisation' of the university