Literary Bedfordshire was a project that brought together literary history and book trade archives through research into the writers who lived, worked or passed through the county of Bedfordshire, from John Bunyan and Christopher Fry to S.I. Martin and Vivian French.

The project was a collaboration between the academic schools of Culture & Communications (now Arts and Creative Industries), Education & English Language (now Education) and Computer Science & Technology, the research institute for Media, Arts & Performance (RIMAP), and two community teams within the Centre for Academic Partnerships (CAP) - Collaborative Outreach Projects and Culture and Community Engagement

For RIMAP, Literary Bedfordshire drew on expertise within the institute on women writers, creative writing, digital publishing and the specialist collections at the University library.

As part of Literary Bedfordshire students and pupils from local schools were encouraged to explore their literary heritage through bespoke outreach and a growing range of learning resources developed by experts from across the University.