Digital Researcher
The National Archives
Apply before 11:55 pm on Sunday 10th November 2024
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About the job
Job summary
About you:
You have a passion for innovation and cross-disciplinary collaboration. With a good understanding of digital cultural heritage research, you have an enthusiasm for collaboration and actively seek new opportunities for engagement and research that address technology, collections and the communities that together produce and curate them.
This is an excellent opportunity for someone who brings digital research experience to deliver innovative research and create new insights into cultural heritage collections, research and engagement activities. This role would suit a researcher with knowledge of digital humanities, digital scholarship, computer science, data science, or research development in a higher education or heritage context would be welcome.
It is important to us that our organisation is more diverse, so we encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and identities. We’re especially keen to hear from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates who are currently underrepresented.
Job description
Person specification
About us:
The National Archives (TNA) is the official archive of the UK government and for England and Wales, making available to the public a vast collection of historical records dating back over 1,000 years. TNA is also an Independent Research Organisation (IRO), meaning we are eligible to lead UKRI-funded research. Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research into all aspects of our collections and activities is at the heart of what we do, as we become a digital archive by instinct and design and seek to generate new knowledge with our collections. We work with vast data collections and a range of national and international university, heritage and industry partners on areas including digital research in humanities and social sciences, computer science, archival and information science, and heritage science and conservation.
Our RGAE department is charged with conducting, enabling and promoting world-class research, often delivered in collaboration with external partners including experts from academia, heritage organisations, other government departments and industry. Digital research is a growing focus for us, experimenting with emerging technologies to develop tools for the exploration, investigation, remediation, and preservation of our collections and their re-use. We embrace opportunities to innovate with computational approaches in all aspects of our work in line with our Research Vision, our Digital Strategy and our corporate strategy, Archives for Everyone.
Our Research Vision centres around a desire to enable computational access to large-scale digital objects such as born-digital collections, maps, and datasets. This is a long-term aim which will encompass emerging technologies, cloud infrastructure, and opening our data through computational interfaces, and we are at the beginning of that journey. This role will focus on data, exploring methods for extracting content from our collections and representing it within cultural heritage data standards, such as IIIF.
Within the beautiful surroundings of Kew, a 10-minute walk from Underground and Overground stations. A combination of onsite and home working is available, and applicants should be able to regularly travel to our Kew site for a minimum of 60% of their work time. TNA boasts a collegial working environment and the excellent Civil Service benefits package. This includes flexible working, an on-site gym, wellbeing resources and an opportunity to join the Civil Service Pension Scheme. Putting people at the forefront of our organisation, we are committed to enabling professional development and training for all our colleagues. You would be joining a friendly and passionate team who welcome new and creative approaches and are dedicated to influencing the future of archives and research.
This is a full time post. However, requests for part-time working, flexible working and job share will be considered, taking into account at all times the operational needs of the Department.
How to apply:
If you are an internal applicant: please do not use the link on this page. Please apply via your employee Workday account.
If you are an external applicant: to submit your application please click the 'Apply at advertiser's site' button on this page.
You will be asked to provide details of your work experience and write a personal statement. In your personal statement please explain, using examples, how you meet the essential criteria given below. You may draw on knowledge, skills, abilities, experience gained from paid work, domestic responsibilities, education, leisure interests and voluntary activities. Please note selection for interview will largely be based on the information you provide in this section.
Please note that we cannot anonymise CVs and will not be sharing them with the panel, so please make sure to mention any relevant publications in your personal statement.
Essential criteria:
- Postgraduate qualification, or equivalent experience, in digital, computing or data research in cultural heritage or academia.
- Experience in managing, structuring, and analysing large scale data and the results of computational experiments.
- Knowledge of using, or willingness to experiment with, Artificial Intelligence in research, focusing on working with text i.e. text mining, Natural Language Processing, Large Language Models.
- A collaborative approach with experience of multidisciplinary work and excellent interpersonal and communication skills, including documentation of research or data resources, co-authoring research papers or technical reports, and giving presentations or classes on technical subjects.
- Demonstrated enthusiasm for and proven ability to acquire and assimilate new computational ideas and techniques on the job and apply them successfully.
- Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to prioritise, work independently and manage own workload, including planning and execution, and to work well as part of an agile and busy team.
Desirable criteria:
Experience in at least one of the following fields: working with cloud services for research, visualization of large and complex data, cultural heritage data standards such as IIIF, text mining, natural language processing and/or large language models.
Benefits
Any move to The National Archives from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk;
Things you need to know
Selection process details
Reasonable adjustments:
If a person with disabilities is put at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.
If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:
- Contact The National Archives via careers@nationalarchives.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs
- Complete the “Assistance required” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
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Working for the Civil Service
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
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Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name : The Recruitment Team
- Email : careers@nationalarchives.gov.uk
- Telephone : 02039855979
Recruitment team
- Email : careers@nationalarchives.gov.uk
Further information
