Kew Research Fellow

We are seeking applications from promising early-career scientists and data scientists with interesting, innovative, and viable research ideas for the Future Leader Fellowship.

The Future Leader Fellowship provides a unique opportunity for early-career researchers to develop their scientific portfolio and skills in a vibrant research environment, working with colleagues in Kew Science to make substantial contributions to challenges facing humanity.

Kew offers five Future Leader Fellowships each year, aligned across our Research Priorities. This Fellowship is within the Digital Revolution Priority. The successful candidate will be based at Kew.

Our flagship Future Leader Fellowship programme enables the brightest and most innovative young scientists to develop research projects in their field of expertise while gaining the necessary leadership and professional skills for the next stage of their careers.

Line managed by a senior researcher, the candidate will be benefit from opportunities for development that include – but are not limited to - training workshops on topics from grant writing to research impact, a mentorship programme, bi-annual meetings with the Director of Science, and other chances for researcher-led training. They will also be able to apply for secondment and research funding internally and are encouraged to use this funding to travel for their research.

The Fellowship aims to provide early career researchers with an internationally outstanding level of training and professional development, empowering them to become established as independent research leaders in their discipline by the end of the Fellowship. This Fellowship is offered as a four-year research post based at Kew Gardens.

Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (RBG Kew) holds a wealth of data about plants and fungi. Within Kew’s Science Strategy 2021-2025, Digital Revolution has been identified as a priority, putting the management and use of our digital assets at the heart of our scientific agenda.

This Future Leader Fellowship should support the delivery of Kew’s Science Strategy 2021-2025, and in particular the initiatives identified for the Digital Revolution priority including Digitisation of Kew’s collections, Knowledge Integration and Knowledge Sharing. 

The Future Leader Fellow appointed to this priority will be data literate and able to develop and deliver a research plan which harnesses Kew’s data to address real world challenges, such as the protection of the environment and the promotion of human health and welfare.

The successful candidate will be able to present a research plan demonstrating a proficiency in novel approaches applied to digital texts and images, integration of multi-modal data of diverse provenance, or detect hidden patterns in reference data to support classification, predictive modelling, and hypothesis generation. This may include using techniques such as automated segmentation image analysis, metadata combination including images, trend and modelling analysis from grounded data and the exploration of future image-based methodologies. Research areas could also include machine learning in Optical character recognition (OCR) and automated transcription of handwriting in multiple worldwide languages.

Please note that this post is suitable for students of any relevant subject, a biosciences qualification is not a requirement, although successful candidates will be data proficient and able to publish biodiversity impact papers and DOI datasets linked to data methodologies and analysis.

Applicants must include a research CV and a research plan as attachments on their online application form. The research plan does not have a set format but should not exceed three sides of A4. The research plan should provide an outline of what your plans would be for the four-year Fellowship, which will then be developed into a full research plan in collaboration with your line manager if successful.

Interviews are likely to take place between 20 May and 7 June, with the Fellowship commencing in September 2024.

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. 

The salary will be £39,066 per annum.

Our fantastic benefits package includes opportunities for continuous learning, a generous annual leave entitlement, flexible working to help you maintain a healthy work-life balance, an Employee Assistance Programme and other wellbeing support such as cycle to work scheme and discounted gym membership. We also offer a competitive pension, an employee discount scheme and free entry into a wide range of national museums and galleries, as well access to our own beautiful gardens at Kew and Wakehurst.

We are dedicated to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from all sections of the community. We are committed to interviewing disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the post.

No agencies please.