Placements and Opportunities

Techne PhD student Anushka Tay researching at the Archive, Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew. Photo by Alice Nelson.

We encourage all Techne students to undertake at least one funded placement as part of their PhD as a chance to develop skills outside of their research and experience working at a range of organisations. Placements can be organised with Techne partners, or with any other organisation including HEIs.

Partner placement opportunities will be advertised to you through the weekly newsletter.

Techne Diversity Placements:

Engagement with EDI issues is central to everything that Techne does, and we are always looking for new ways to develop this work in association with Techne students. These Techne Diversity Placements seek to build on, and expand, the achievements of previous placements, the Techne Racial Justice Fellowships and Techne Racial Justice Partner Placements. They offer students an exciting opportunity to design, develop, and support Techne’s equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives. These roles will be co-created between the postholder, the Techne EDI Committee, and the Techne Director.

Students who undertake a placement supporting these EDI initiatives will be involved in activities such as the following:

Working with the Techne Training Group on projects including: reflecting on current training provision and providers; Congress planning; researching the specific training needs of marginalised groups
Working with the Techne committees and team in designing, organising, and co-ordinating EDI-focused Techne events
Working with the Techne EDI Committee, and potentially with external experts, to develop key resources for the Techne website, such as policy documents, and support material for speakers and training providers
Working on initiatives connected to the Techne Diversity Hub
Working with the Techne committees and team to develop resources to support current Techne students

We invite applications from applicants with interests in any area of equality, diversity and inclusion. Interested students can contact Dr. Sands (Danielle.Sands@rhul.ac.uk) for further information regarding these placement opportunities.

Current External Opportunities:

Museum Finding Aid Placement (Hockey Museum)

The Hockey Museum (THM, https://hockeymuseum.org/) is the world’s first and only museum of field hockey. Located in Woking, Surrey, it is only a 30 minute train from Waterloo station. THM preserves, shares and celebrates the sport’s rich history and heritage both in Britain – where the ‘modern’ game started – and worldwide. THM was awarded Full Museum Accreditation by Arts Council England in 2018. It is supported by Woking Borough Council and England Hockey and works in partnership with the Fédération Internationale de Hockey Federation (FIH) to lead their work to preserve hockey’s international history.

THM is offering a three month placement, beginning late 2024 or early 2025, to create finding aids for the Museum’s collections. The creation of these finding aids will enhance the accessibility of the Museum’s collections and archives. The placement student will create the top-level summaries and collection descriptions so that the finding aids can be displayed online for scholars and researchers to know what material is held by the Museum. As new collections are received, the placement student will also have the opportunity to work with the Museum archivist to scope collections and apply formal structure to and document collections within a museum setting, alongside the creation of the finding aid. This work will help THM increase the awareness and use of its collections.

The placement student will be expected to be on site for part of the time each week. This placement can be either full-time or part-time.

If you would like to discuss this placement, please contact THM Curator Shane Smith at shane.smith@hockeymuseum.org. To apply, please email your CV (with at least one named academic referee) and a statement of no more than one page on why you are interested in this role to shane.smith@hockeymuseum.org by 11 October 2024.

Research Assistant: Multilingual and Multidialectal Creative Writing in Schools:

Karina Lickorish Quinn seeks assistance with research into the impact of creative writing in schools being taught in ways that include and celebrate children's home languages and dialects.

In England, one fifth of school-aged children speak a language other than English at home. Most English children speak a dialect of English other than the so-called ‘Standard English’ dialect. However for the most part children’s many languages and dialects are not welcome in the literacy classroom. Working on this research, you will help to gather data on the benefits of creative writing as a means of including children’s full linguistic repertoires in their literacy learning and will help to upskill teachers in how to teach in linguistically inclusive ways.

The Research Assistant will assist with:

Assisting with planning research projects and workshops to take place in primary and secondary schools;
Assisting with the creation of teaching resources for teachers and schools;
Assisting with managing the project website and social media;
Liaising with schools and teachers to organise and plan research projects;
Visiting schools across England to run writing workshops (travel expenses will be reimbursed);
Gathering data in schools which may include photocopying student writing for analysis, administering digital surveys, conducting group interviews with children, young people, teachers and/or parents;
Transcribing and managing data gathered during the research project.

This role will provide excellent experience for candidates contemplating a career in academic research or in school teaching or community arts. The role is especially suitable for those with experience in running creative writing workshops in the community and/or school teaching and working with children. A DBS check will be required.

How to apply:

Applicants should send a brief CV (no more than 2 pages), detailing relevant experience and a 300-500 word statement detailing why they are interested in the role and what they would hope to gain from working as Assistant Editor, to karina.lickorishquinn@rhul.ac.uk by 1159pm on Monday 30 September 2024.

For further details, look through the flyer available here.

Assistant Editor of the Wasafiri Winter 2025 special British Latinx issue

The Wasafiri team seek a PhD student to assist with the editing of a special issue to be published in Winter 2025 on British Latinx literature and arts. The Assistant Editor will assist with editing interviews and creative works, including poetry, prose fiction, life writing and feature essays; liaising with contributors; undertaking administrative tasks such as the acquisition of publishing permissions; tracking and chasing deadlines to ensure the timely submission of the issue; and liaising with Wasafiri regarding social media content relating to the issue and launch event. The assistant editor will also assist with the planning of the issue’s launch event in late 2025. Most of the work will be done remotely and flexibly, though the Assistant Editor will be expected to attend the launch event which will take place in London.

The role would be especially suitable for those with expertise in creative writing or editing, knowledge of Latin American/Latinx arts and culture or knowledge of contemporary global or diasporic literature. We encourage applications from Latinx individuals as well as BIPOC and LGBTQI+ individuals.

This role provides experience in editing, publishing and events administration that would be valuable for those looking to progress into careers in academia, publishing and the arts.

How to apply:

For further details, look through the flyer available here.

UKRI Policy Internship Scheme 2024/25

The UKRI Policy Internships Scheme for 2024/25 is now open and the closing date for applications is 4.00pm on 2 October 2024.

The scheme provides the opportunity for doctoral students funded by the Research Councils of UKRI to undertake a three-month placement at one of a selected group of highly influential policy organisations. During their internship, the student undertakes training and experience on a policy topic agreed with their host partner that is relevant to both parties. The intention of the scheme is to embed students in an environment where they can engage with the process of converting research outputs into policy. These internships equip students with transferable skills and training relevant to the future career paths that the student may choose.

Full details of how to apply, including links to the online application form and guidance documents are available through the UKRI Policy Internships Scheme webpage.

Working with the High Court of Admiralty’s Records (National Archives)

The National Archives are also offering a placement in the Collections Expertise and Engagement department to work with the diverse and largely unexplored records of the High Court of Admiralty. The placement will focus on letters, papers and legal records relating to early modern piracy, prize-taking, colonialism, and overseas exchange, 1536–1783. It also comes with the potential to work on related projects with other departments at TNA, such as public engagement, education and digital content with the intention of broadening engagement with these records beyond established academic and research communities, in support of our role as archive sector lead.

For further information, please look through the information available in this flyer. If you have any specific questions, please contact research@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

Visualising naval networks in the Admiralty China Station records (National Archives)

This three-month placement will involve a student with interests in transnational history and digital humanities uncovering some of the stories from the correspondence taken from the Admiralty China station using social network analysis. The student chosen will be able to explore the structure and content of the correspondence, map this using the relevant technologies and then engage the public with those records/histories in imaginative ways. Please note that that the historical military records will contain ideas, text and imagery which reflect the viewpoints and attitudes prevalent at the time the records were written and may now be considered offensive.

The project would be expected to start no earlier than November 2024, and would be full-time over a three month period. In order to work closely with the records, the placement would be predominantly onsite.

For further information, please refer to this flyer. If you have any specific questions, please contact research@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

AHRC International Placement Scheme (IPS)

Which funds short-term fellowships at prestigious international research institutions for UK doctoral level research assistants and AHRC/ESRC funded doctoral students. The scheme is run annually, with places available across a number of different host institutions including:

Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin, USA
The Huntington Library, California, USA
Library of Congress, Washington DC, USA
National Institutes for the Humanities, Japan
Shanghai Theatre Academy, Shanghai, China
Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., USA
YaleCenterfor British Art, Connecticut, USA
National Museum Institute, New Delhi, India

Placements will last three to six months. Participants will receive £1,000 for travel and visa costs. Application opens in November and closes in February every year. To apply, your School or Supervisor will need to submit an application via the IPS/AHRC scheme. Please check the IPS page on the AHRC’s website for details. See here AHRC Guidance on filling the application, which includes criteria for the grading scale.

Past External Opportunities:

Cabinet Office Open Innovation Placements

HM Government’s Open Innovation Team generates analysis and insight for government by helping officials collaborate with outside experts and research. Over the past three years, more than 75 PhD students have been hosted, with many going on to policy jobs after completing their studies. This placement offered the chance to work with clients across government, experience a diverse range of policy areas and learn how you can transfer your PhD skills into new environments.

PhD students were invited to join their team for three months on a full time basis to help deliver policy projects on health, welfare reform, industrial strategy, digital transformation and other priority areas.

Royal Institute PhD Science Presenter Internship (Ri)

The Ri provides science education and heritage activities for people of all ages and backgrounds across the UK and around the world.

This internship was an opportunity for PhD researchers to build confidence in presenting to a group of young people in an engaging educational environment, to receive regular feedback and training in science communication and to design content for use on Ri social media. The internship ran from May to July 2022.

The British Library (BL)

BL runs an internal PhD Placement Scheme that aims to provide an opportunity to PhD researchers to experience research in a different environment to that of a university, to engage with a range of research users and audiences, to gain insights into different potential postdoctoral career paths, and to make a tangible contribution to the purposes and programmes of a national library and major cultural organisation.

A broad range of opportunities to work with different collections are made available every year for projects of 3 months or part-time equivalent. Many of the projects are suitable for partial or full remote working. A list of all available placement projects and full details of how to apply are available on the website here: https://www.bl.uk/news/2023/january/phd-placement-opportunities

Kate Ferry-Swainson exploring the National Theatre costume store.