Closing date for expressions of interest: midnight on Sunday 30th June 2019
ECR Development Opportunity: NNMHR / Wellcome Trust Discretionary Award
The NNMHR call for expressions of interest from ECRs to collaborate on the development of an exciting new project intended to support ECRs from across the Northern Network to engage creatively with the Wellcome Collection’s extensive holdings. The chosen team will devise a programme of activities to facilitate interdisciplinary dialogue around the Collection and support innovative modes of exploration and use, with a focus on research and public engagement. This programme will form the basis of an application for a Wellcome Trust Discretionary Award, for which the NNMHR has been invited to apply. The project will be led by Fiona Johnstone (Durham/ The Polyphony), with support from the NNMHR steering group, and the administrative assistance of Durham Institute for Medical Humanities. 4-6 ECRs will collaborate with Dr Johnstone on developing and co-writing the grant application, due August 31, and on delivering the resulting programme of activities and events.
How might the Collection be activated to appeal to a range of stakeholders beyond those who usually engage in archival work? For example, how might the Collection be made useful to those who work on very contemporary material or future-facing projects? How might it animate a more visually engaged critical medical humanities, and how might it be made more accessible to artists, activists, local organisations, and other non-traditional researchers?
The opportunity to be a collaborator on this grant application, and on the programme of events it will support, is open to postdoctoral ECRs affiliated to a NNMHR institution, from any discipline, who have research and/or engagement experience in the medical humanities. Successful candidates will need to be able to commit to working collaboratively on the bid over July and early August 2019 (this is likely to include attending a working group in Durham on 15th July), and then supporting the project from 2019-2020, should funding be awarded. Limited funding will be available to support in-person meetings of the project team.
This is a career enrichment opportunity intended to allow postdoctoral researchers to gain valuable experience at collaborative grant writing within a well-supported environment, and to be named as co-collaborators on a Wellcome Trust Grant. If the bid is successful, the project will give you the chance to influence the way in which the Wellcome Collection thinks about its holdings, and to make your mark on research activities across the NNMHR. It will offer significant networking opportunities, and the experience of working as part of an interdisciplinary team, devising and delivering a meaningful programme of academic events on time and to budget.
Finally, the project will enhance your own engagement with the Wellcome Collection’s holdings, and provide occasion for you to consider how the Collection might enrich your own research (e.g. by providing a previously unthought of archival dimension to future or current projects, or by suggesting avenues for communicating and collaborating with non-academic audiences and stakeholders).
If the bid is successful, there will be additional opportunities for other researchers to engage with this project beyond the grant writing stage, by contributing to the workshops and other events.
For full details, and to register your interest please go to: http://nnmh.org.uk/ecr-development-opportunity-nnmhr-wellcome-trust-discretionary-award/
Closing date for expressions of interest midnight on Sunday 30th June 2019.