Applications are invited for an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award PhD studentship at University College London and the Royal Society on the funding of science in London in the period 1660-1760, using materials within the Royal Society’s archives. The student will be based at the Department of Science and Technology Studies (STS) at UCL, and will start in September 2020. The named supervisors for this project are: Simon Werrett (STS, UCL) and Keith Moore (Royal Society).

For this project the student will use the little-examined financial and property records of the Royal Society to explore the material and financial culture of science in London between 1660 and 1760. This will allow the student to contemplate the Society’s ground-level domestic history, from founder gatherings at Fellows’ houses, to the institutional residence at Gresham College (1660-1710), the stately home of Arundel House (1666-1673) and to the private houses at Crane Court (1710-1778). Apart from the doctorate itself, it is hoped that the studentship will make a genuine contribution to the digital humanities: potentially, by digital rendering of manuscripts, training the student on managing the disparate elements (scanning, metadata) to make the archives concerned widely available online; or, more excitingly, to use the archival data in the recreation one of the Society’s historical interiors.

Applicants are expected to hold a Master’s degree in a relevant discipline from a UK university, an overseas qualification of an equivalent standard, or equivalent professional experience.

The studentship is part of the Collaborative Doctoral Programme, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) through a consortium including the Science Museum Group. Studentships are fully funded for 45 months (3.75 years) with potential to be extended for another 3 months. 3 to 6 months of the funded period should be spent on professional development and not on research for the thesis.

The doctoral training grant provides a living stipend and tuition fees at UKRI rates and is subject to standard AHRC eligibility, rules, and guidance for the research students whom they fund and support. AHRC’s minimum stipend rate and indicative fees rate for 2020/21 are detailed on the UKRI website (https://www.ukri.org/skills/funding-for-research-training/).

The major features of CDP awards are to enable collaboration between a Higher Education Institution and a museum, library, archive, or heritage organisation (in this case UCL and the Royal Society); and to enable the student to acquire new skills within a research-led, professional environment. There is the potential for an additional doctoral training grant, subject to standard AHRC eligibility, rules, and guidance for the research students whom they fund and support. This studentship also offers research expenses (including some support for travel from the Royal Society), digital humanities and other training, and working space at the institutions.

Informal inquiries are welcome. Please contact Prof. Simon Werrett if you have further questions.

Applicants should send: i) a CV and ii) a statement of interest (maximum 2 pages) by email to Professor Simon Werrett (s.werrett@ucl.ac.uk) by May 15th 2020. 17:00 GMT

Interview for the studentship will take place on 29 MAY 2020.
More info can be found here.