Outrage as academics are handed £2m to study how humans interact with CHICKENS The money will be used to send students to live in Cuba and Ethiopia as well as to pay academics for collating data and writing reports The University of Bournemouth-led project aims to investigate the history of the birds, which could tell scientists more about the people who kept them The Taxpayer's Alliance has branded the three year study 'ridiculous' and a 'waste of money' As research topics go, it has to be one of the most bird-brained. A university has received £2million of taxpayers" cash to investigate how humans have got on with chickens over the past 8,000 years. The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) awarded the grant to a three-year study, led by Bournemouth University, called "Cultural and Scientific Perceptions of Human-Chicken Interactions." Mark Maltby (pictured) reader in Archaeology at Bournemouth University is involved in the three year study. The controversial £2m grant, will be used to fund experts from six universities while they examine and collate data, write articles and go on field trips to examine the history of the chicken But critics have reacted with fury that public money is going to such a project while funds for the disabled and sick are being cut. Some of the cash will even be used to send students to live in Cuba and Ethiopia to learn about how people there interact with chickens. The study begins in January, and will involve archaeologists, PhD students, geneticists and anthropologists. Project leader Mark Maltby, reader in archaeology at Bournemouth University, said: "What we uncover about chickens may lead us to find out more of a wider history about the people keeping them." And he defended the size of the grant, saying it will be shared between university researchers at Bournemouth, Roehampton, Nottingham, Durham, Leicester and York. The results of the research will be used in a series of exhibitions in museums across Britain. Some of the funding will be used to send students to live in Cuba and Ethiopia (pictured) to study how people there interact with chickens. But taxpayer campaign groups are crying fowl over the publicly funded project and have branded it a 'ridiculous study' The three-year investigation will start in January and will be carried about by academics including archaeologists, PHD students, geneticists, and anthropologists. Researchers will examine when domesticated chickens spread across Europe and when humans started using them for meat and eggs A spokesman for the AHRC said: "Today there are well over 20billion chickens worldwide, yet we still know very little about their social and cultural history. pugh Our attitudes towards chickens are complex - from the rituals of the roast dinner on Sunday and the convenience of fast food, to named birds kept in back yards. This project will conduct detailed analysis of their natural and cultural history in the West and the findings will be shared with poultry breeders and schoolchildren. But Robert Oxley, of the TaxPayers" Alliance, said yesterday: "This is frankly an absurd sum of money to spend on what appears to be a ridiculous study. Given the limited budget and important challenges facing the UK, research like this should be way down the pecking order for taxpayer-funded grants. Meanwhile, the Dorset Blind Association is struggling to secure £40,000 of funding to maintain services it offers to vulnerable people. Its chief executive, Jonathan Holyhead, said: "I am really struggling to see why funding something of this nature should take priority over a charity supporting disabled people. I am also struggling to understand the need for this research, especially given how tight funding is for a charity like ours. We have spoken to the local authority several times about funding without success.