Dr Alan Butler is a director of the Pride in Plymouth Community Trust and an Associate Lecturer at the University of Plymouth where he leads on the Heritage MA Display and Interpretation module and is a co-director of Plymouth Heritage Praxis. 

In 2016 he completed an AHRC funded collaborative PhD called “Performing LGBT Pride in Plymouth 1950 - 2012” with the University of Plymouth. The project involved the formation of a specific LGBTQ+ history accession for the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office (now The Box) which currently sits alongside the Pride in Plymouth’s LGBTQ+ Community Archive. This archive currently comprises around 100 oral history interviews along with memorabilia pertaining to the performance of LGBTQ+ identity in the city over a sixty-year period was awarded the “Most Inspirational” archive award by the Community Archive and Heritage Group, where he is now part of the committee, as well as being an trustee of the Oral History Society and the chair of their LGBTQ+ Special Interest Group.

He is also a Volunteer and Community Engagement Officer with the National Trust at Saltram House and co-facilitates the Plymouth Community Heritage Network, for Plymouth Octopus, where he serves as a trustee.