Do you have an understanding of object-based research with museum collections, library collections, and/or archives? Do you want to facilitate new research opportunities and establish new relationships and impactful partnerships with external researchers and organisations?
About Us
Establishing a thriving research culture is at the heart of our plans for the continuing development of the National Collections Centre (NCC), as somewhere the Science Museum Group can ignite curiosity, reveal wonder, and share authentic stories. NCC will be the home of 80% of SMG’s collection, most of which is stored in our new sector-leading storage facility built with access in mind, and a dedicated Collections Access team to support research visitors.
We are recruiting a Research Engagement Manager based at the NCC in Wroughton, Swindon to join on a fixed term contract for 2 years, working 35 hours per week.
About the role
As Research Engagement Manager you will play a key role in delivering the public engagement potential of this new facility at the NCC, at a crucial time of re-opening. The role will be focused on facilitating new research opportunities with the collection, and establishing new relationships and collaborative, impactful partnerships with external researchers and organisations.
You will lead on gaining a better understanding of our research audiences, both online and in person, and promoting the research potential of the NCC and the collections it holds. Working with SMG’s audience research teams, this role will produce an innovative, inclusive audience development plan for SMG’s research audiences. This will expand the definition of ‘researcher’ at SMG, and proactively seek out new pathways into collections research for a wide variety of people.
Building strategic and sustainable relationships and establishing more formal partnerships is fundamental to increasing our reach in the South West. This role will work with local universities and organisations to bring groups to the site, develop research skills, explore potential collaborative funding bids, and link up external partners with internal SMG experts from York, Manchester, Bradford, and London. In this role you will proactively conduct a series of research access experiments with different kinds of researcher and educational groups, developing a suite of research engagement modes for the collection.
About you
Joining us you will have a PhD in any subject (or be working towards submission), or equivalent experience. You will also have experience of working in a research environment, such as (but not limited to) a learned society, a subject specialist network, a thinktank, a research-driven business, a university, a museum, an Independent Research Organisation (IRO), etc.
You will have an understanding of object-based research with museum collections, library collections, and/or archives in addition to experience of delivering research events and programmes, such as talks, conferences, seminars, online events.
Crucially, you will have outstanding interpersonal skills which will enable you to cultivate new relationships and partnerships across a wide range of research audiences.
Applying
View the Vacancy Information Pack listed under ‘Attachments’ on the vacancy listing on our website for more details about the role and the application process, or click ‘Apply Online’ to submit an application.
Don’t feel you meet all of the criteria? At SMG, we are committed to building a workforce that is open for all, and welcome you to apply, even if your experience doesn’t fit perfectly. With your transferable skills, you could be the right candidate for this, or other opportunities that we have.
What we offer
Joining us as an employee, you will have the opportunity to develop your career in a world-class museum group. We know work/life balance and wellbeing is crucial to our colleagues, so we currently offer up to 25 days annual leave in addition to bank holidays; BUPA medical and dental care; employee assistance programme; enhanced contributory pension; enhanced occupational sick, maternity, paternity and adoption leave and career breaks.
‘Open for All’ is one of the Science Museum Group’s five core values and sets out our important aspiration to be a place for everyone. As a national museum group, we have an ability to reach a wide and diverse population of audiences, colleagues and partners through our geography and scale.
We are working hard to understand our organisation better and to foster a culture that recognises and values different backgrounds, mindsets, skills, experience, knowledge and expertise. By having greater diversity, we believe that we will be a stronger and better organisation and ultimately will be able to inspire more futures. We therefore welcome applications from those who bring difference.