Jobs Archive
Herbarium Collections Assistant
This is an exciting opportunity to become a member of Kew's Collections team, with responsibility for maintaining high standards in the care of Kew's internationally important preserved plant collections.
You will work as part of a small team of Collections Assistants based in the Herbarium's busy Collections Management Unit, which is responsible for freezing, recording, distributing and tracking preserved specimen consignments and shipments (approx. 50,000 specimens per year), making them available for scientific research both at Kew and institutes worldwide.
You will have previous administration experience and be educated to at least A-level or equivalent. This role requires meticulous attention to detail, a proven ability to follow precise procedures and accurately document and track specimen records through appropriate IT tools. You'll have the physical ability to lift, carry and pack heavy specimen consignments and use trolleys whilst also being able to handle individual specimens delicately and with care.
You'll be highly organised, even under time constraints and with multiple competing priorities, an excellent communicator, with accurate data entry skills, and you will be able to problem solve and prioritise your own work. You must be self-motivated and a good general knowledge of geography, plant classification, CITES or experience of previous work in a museum environment or Collections Management team would be an advantage.
Please note that this will be an office-based role only. Interviews will include an assessed tour and short test, for this reason all interviews are expected to be in-person.
Digitisation Curator - New Acquisitions
We are seeking to appoint an individual as the Digitisation Curator for New Acquisitions. Reporting to the Digital Collections New Acquisitions Manager, the postholder will use their in-depth knowledge of herbarium collections and curation procedures to help develop the new workflow for the digitisation of incoming material. This role will be essential in ensuring procedures meet the curatorial statutory obligations and can be implemented smoothly into day-to-day curatorial activities by highlighting areas where workflows could be problematic, suggesting and testing improvements.
RBG Kew are currently recruiting staff to work on an exciting and unique project to digitise Kew’s 8.5 million plant and fungal specimens and create a complete catalogue of our internationally significant collections, making specimen records and images freely available online and accessible to researchers across the globe.
The outcome of this project will provide a unique, world-leading resource making accessible data from more than 260 years of scientific exploration, placing them at the centre of efforts to combat urgent global challenges such as habitat degradation, climate change and human health.
In addition, RBG Kew are recruiting staff to support the implementation of a new collections management system to ensure efficient and effective integrated management of the Science and Living Collections and the data describing them.
The Integrated Collections Management System will allow more efficient tracking of the use of specimens to meet legislative requirements concerning access to genetic resources and benefit sharing, including the Nagoya Protocol of the Convention on Biological Diversity and plant health legislation.
Essential skills and experience required for this role include experience of curatorial activities, ideally in an herbarium setting; knowledge of taxonomic names and previous experience adjusting protocols and workflows. This post will require strong communication skills, both written and oral, as well as an understanding of data management and manipulation.
Assistant Volunteer Coordinator - Digitisation
We are seeking to appoint an Assistant Volunteer Coordinator to assist with delivering our Digitisation volunteer programme. Reporting to the Digitisation Volunteer Coordinator the postholder will be a member of the Digital Collections team in Kew’s Digital Revolution Department and part of a large project team. The postholder will support volunteers contributing to the digitisation effort. They will supervise onsite volunteers digitising Herbarium specimens and prepare online crowdsourcing projects for remote volunteers.
RBG Kew are currently recruiting staff to work on an exciting and unique project to digitise Kew’s 8.5 million plant and fungal specimens and create a complete catalogue of our internationally significant collections, making specimen records and images freely available online and accessible to researchers across the globe.
The outcome of this project will provide a unique, world-leading resource making accessible data from more than 260 years of scientific exploration, placing them at the centre of efforts to combat urgent global challenges such as habitat degradation, climate change and human health.
In addition, RBG Kew are recruiting staff to support the implementation of a new collections management system to ensure efficient and effective integrated management of the Science and Living Collections and the data describing them.
Essential skills and experience required for this role include: supervision of volunteers or students, excellent communication skills with a proven ability to work collaboratively as part of a team, high attention to detail especially on data entry and working with large datasets.
Quality Assurance Officer and Team Leader
We are seeking to appoint 3 individuals with high attention to detail and experience of transcribing and imaging Natural History or museum specimens to report where digital outputs of Herbarium or Fungarium specimens do not meet agreed standards. They will supervise and train a team of digitisation officers and must ensure the work they produce meet required standards.
Essential skills and experience required for this role include ability to check image and data quality against defined standards, a competent understanding of taxonomy, nomenclature and geography, Excellent IT Skills, and an ability to support, manage and motivate staff to achieve personal and team targets.
Data Manager
We are seeking to appoint an individual experienced in data cleaning tools and methodologies to support the digitisation project, cleaning Herbarium and Fungarium specimen data and importing specimen records into Kew’s collection management system.
Essential skills and experience required for this role include skills in generating complex queries of large data sets with appropriate technical skills for the efficient manipulation and transfer of data and a competent understanding of taxonomy, nomenclature, and geography.
This role is based at Kew with the option of regular home working, subject to operational requirements.
Quality Assurance Officer
We are seeking to appoint 3 individuals with high attention to detail and experience of transcribing and imaging Natural History or museum specimens to assist with the development and documentation of Quality Assurance protocols. They will also be responsible for reporting where digital outputs of Herbarium or Fungarium specimens do not meet agreed standards.
Essential skills include ability to check image and data quality against defined standards, write protocols, a competent understanding of taxonomy, nomenclature and geography and Excellent IT Skills.
Digitisation Officer
We are looking to appoint 7 digitisation officers to image and transcribe label data from Herbarium and Fungarium specimens. The post holder will be a member of the digital collections team with responsibility to maintain high standards in the management of Kew’s internationally important digital collections. They will be part of a large project team dedicated to the digitisation of Kew’s collections.
Essential skills and experience include handling collections or working with fragile and delicate material, data entry and imaging skills along with a strong interest in Biodiversity, its sustainable use and conservation. The position will require attention to detail and a high level of motivation.
Integrated Collections Management System (ICMS) Training Lead
RBG Kew embarked on implementing a new integrated collections management system in 2021 and are now recruiting a Training Lead to support and train all End Users as the new system is rolled out to support the science collections. Reporting to the Data Migration Lead the Training Lead will work within the ICMS Team, delivering effective training and leading on the development of the User Manuals. This postholder will play a pinnacle part in supporting the ongoing implementation and configuration of the integrated collections management system –supplied by Earthcape Oy.
Essential skills and experience required for this role include, educated to degree level or equivalent, experience of delivering training of an IT system, good knowledge of Microsoft Excel and excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
This role is based at Kew/Wakehurst with the option of regular home working, subject to operational requirements.
Data Quality Officer
We are seeking to appoint a talented Data Quality Officer who has skills in data cleansing techniques, can manage all aspects of data quality challenges with Fungarium & Mycology specimen collection data and can liaise effectively with curators and collection managers to seek advice and information The Data Quality Officer will support Kew’s Integrated Collections Management System (ICMS) Programme working to address data quality issues in preparation for the data migration to the new science collection management system and support ongoing data management requirements once data has been migrated.
Essential skills and experience required for this role include: educated to a degree level or equivalent, experience of data analysis and reporting, good knowledge of Microsoft Excel and reporting tools, excellent interpersonal skills and an understanding of relationship database and SQL language with experience of using and building complex queries and clean large datasets. Desirable skills to support this role will be experience of working with natural history collections and basic botanical knowledge.
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew) is a leading plant science institute, UNESCO World Heritage Site, and major visitor attraction. Our mission is to understand and protect plants and fungi for the well-being of people and the future of all life on Earth.
We are working to end the unprecedented extinction crisis and to help create a world where nature is protected, valued by all and managed sustainably. We will achieve these goals by drawing on our leading scientific research, unrivalled collections of plants and fungi, global network of partners, inspirational gardens at Kew and Wakehurst, and our 260 years of history.
Join us on our journey as protectors of the world’s plants and fungi.
Digitisation Project Communications Officer
We are recruiting for an exciting new role, working closely with the Digitisation Team to deliver a high volume of communications. These will highlight the project’s collections impact, opportunity for novel science projects outside of Kew, attracting interest from the science and research communities, and to enable new funding sources to be secured to support the project to conclude digitising the world-leading collection of specimens.
The postholder's objectives are to increase science and research globally and generate interest in target audiences with a further aim to attract funding through timely and effective communications.
The successful candidate will have a demonstrable background in a similar role. You should have a proven ability, confidence, and experience in the creation, use and dissemination of video, photography, digital and social media for the communication of science or a related field complete with a broad experience in using social media management and analytics tools. You'll need to be someone who can work independently, plan, maintain high standards, whilst working as part of a team and with multiple stakeholders.
This role is based at Kew with the option of regular home working, subject to operational requirements. The post holder will be initially required to work closely with Digi Team to understand processes and glean story content.