UCL Research Institute for Collections Fellowships

We are inviting applications for the 2025 Research Institute for Collections Fellowships. This year we have the Liberating the Collections Fellowship, the Special Collections Visiting Fellowship and new for 2025 is the Museum Collections Fellowship.    

The UCL Research Institute for Collections was founded in 2021 to foster research synergies centred on the library, museum, gallery and departmental collections held in UCL by bringing together curatorial and academic expertise. The Institute is offering a Visiting Fellowship in Special Collections for a scholar in any field of study to visit UCL to conduct research on a topic focused on the UCL Special Collections holdings.

Liberating the Collections offers an opportunity intended to unearth underrepresented voices and find new ways of engaging with collection stories and presenting them to wider society. We invite individuals and groups to apply. An academic background is not a requirement and outputs can range from podcasts, workshops, art, music and much more.

The Special Collections Visiting Fellowship is an opportunity for those with PhDs to visit UCL to conduct research on a topic centred on the UCL holdings of archives, rare books, and records. We encourage research that will approach our collections from different perspectives and through disruptive mechanisms by finding new ways of exploring our diverse holdings and/or by focusing on under-researched perspectives contained within them.

The Museum Collections Visiting Fellowship involves research on a topic centred on the collections of UCL Art Museum, Grant Museum of Zoology, Pathology Museum, Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology and UCL Science Collections. This fellowship will facilitate new research into UCL museum collections and to raise awareness of the collections amongst the research community and the general public. The Fellow will be expected to engage with the curatorial and research community at UCL, and to disseminate the research outcomes to academic and non-academic audiences.

The fellowships are for up to six weeks or part time equivalent.

Projects can start from July 2025 onwards. Fellows should aim to finish their project by the end of 2025.

All Fellows will receive:

A grant of £5,000.

Work-space on the UCL Bloomsbury campus (desk space within each museum to be determined after appointment and will vary by museum).

Mediated access to the collections.

Access to staff with specialist knowledge of the collection(s) in question when available.

For more information on each opportunity please see our Fellowships webpage.

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