Royal Holloway Archival / Curatorial Assistant PhD placements application form

Updated 15 May 2023: Applications are now closed for these placement opportunities.

The Library at Royal Holloway is delighted to be able to offer a couple of part-time placements for doctoral students, ideally starting in May:

Royal Holloway Archive Assistant
Royal Holloway Curatorial Assistant

Royal Holloway Archive Assistant

Come and gain professional skills working as part of Royal Holloway’s Cultural Services Team!

The university archives and special collections are a rich resource for research, teaching and public engagement with strengths in women’s history, theatre collections and rare books.

This is an exciting role for a current doctoral student to join our small team and play an important part in making our archival collections accessible to broad audiences, supporting their use in teaching, research and public engagement. The role holder will be introduced to a wide range of archival practice, and receive training in cataloguing, object handling, digitisation and the running of a professional archive service.

Working closely with the university Archivist and Special Collections Curator and wider Culture Team, including our regular programme of volunteers, the placement holder will gain a comprehensive understanding of archives and collections and their role within the higher education landscape, as well as a range of transferrable professional skills.

The University is committed to equality and diversity and encourages applications from all sections of the community. We strongly encourage applications from Black, Asian and other Minority Ethnic communities, as these are currently underrepresented.

As part of our commitment, we will be undertaking anonymised shortlisting for this post. Resumes/CVs and personal statements which may compromise this process will not be reviewed.

Royal Holloway Archive Assistant job description and person spec.

Dates: Ideally from May - for approx. 4 months

Hours: Approx. 14 - 20 hours a week - exact hours to be negotiated with the Library

Hourly pay rate: £14.71

The deadline for applications has been extended to Friday 12 May.

For informal enquiries, please contact Anne Marie Purcell, Archivist and Special Collections Curator.

Royal Holloway Curatorial Assistant

Come and gain professional skills working as part of Royal Holloway’s Cultural Services Team!

The university Art Collections comprise world-class paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings and watercolours. At the core of the collection are the legacies of two Victorian collectors: the entrepreneur Thomas Holloway (1800–1883) and the artist Christiana Herringham (1852–1929). Their collections have been enhanced through additional gifts, acquisitions and commissions which span from the 17th century to the present day. The Thomas Holloway collection of Victorian paintings are housed in the university’s magnificent Grade 1 listed Picture Gallery.

This is an exciting role for a current doctoral student to join our small team and play an important part in making our art collections accessible to broad audiences, supporting their use in teaching, research and public engagement. The placement holder will gain hands on experience of a broad range of curatorial practice, both public facing and behind the scenes. Training will be provided in object handling, cataloguing and the use of collections database systems.

Working closely with the Head of Cultural Services, the Art Collections Officer and the wider Culture Team, including our regular programme of volunteers, the placement holder will gain a comprehensive understanding of the operation of art collections, galleries and museums and their role within the higher education landscape, as well as a range of transferrable professional skills.

As part of our commitment, we will be undertaking anonymised shortlisting for this post. Resumes/CVs and personal statements which may compromise this process will not be reviewed.

Royal Holloway Curatorial Assistant job description and person spec.

Dates: Ideally from May - for approx. 4 months

Hours: Approx. 14 - 20 hours a week - exact hours to be negotiated with the Library

Hourly pay rate: £14.71

The deadline for applications has been extended to Friday 12 May.

For informal enquiries, please contact Naomi Lebens, Head of Cultural Services/Curator.

Funding and impact on submission deadline

As this is a placement internal to Royal Holloway, you will receive an hourly rate of pay (Grade 5 i.e. £14.71 per hour) rather than a bursary.
Your submission deadline will be extended to reflect the time taken away from your research to do the placement. You will receive confirmation of your new submission deadline once you have successfully completed the placement.

Before you submit your application

Before you submit your application for one of these placements (if you would like to apply for both, please submit a separate application for each), please ensure that you:

Read the advert and job description carefully.
Discuss your plans with your supervisor, as they will need to approve your placement. You will be asked to upload a supporting statement from them as part of your application.
Prepare a CV, outlining your qualifications, key skills and experience (including work, teaching or voluntary experience). You will be asked to upload this as part of your application.
If you are on a Student Route visa, contact the International Student Support Office for advice on how many hours you can spend on your placement a week.
Contact the Doctoral School if you have any queries.

You will need to submit the application in one sitting. You can view the information you need to provide here.

Once you have submitted your application, the Doctoral School will be in contact with you within a week to advise on the probable timeline for the decision and to explain the next steps.