Digital Collections Support Officer

We are looking to appoint an individual experienced in herbarium specimen digitisation to provide essential support to the Digital Collections Team. Reporting to the Data and Workflow Manager, the postholder will be a member of the Digital Collections Team responsible for maintaining high standards in the management of Kew’s internationally important digital collections. The postholder will have a focus on training staff, interns, visitors and volunteers in digitisation techniques and will respond to external enquiries to the online Herbarium Catalogue.

Essential skills and experience required for this role include: educated to degree level or equivalent; experience of transcribing and imaging herbarium specimens; and experience of supporting and training others in complex technical procedures.

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.

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.

This role is based at Kew with the option of regular home working, subject to operational requirements.

The salary will be £26,500 – £28,912 per annum, depending on skills and experience.