Project Lead, Heritage Collections

at  Kings College London

Job id: 106887. Salary: £53,149 - £62,422 per annum pro rata, including London Weighting Allowance.
Posted: 06 February 2025. Closing date: 20 February 2025.
Business unit: Students & Education. Department: Research & Impact.
Contact details: Elisabeth Hannon. Elisabeth.hannon@kcl.ac.uk
Location: Strand Campus. Category: Professional & Support Services.
About us
The King’s community is dedicated to the service of society. King’s Strategic Vision 2029 sets out our vision for the future, shaped around five priority areas: educate to inspire and improve; research to inform and innovate; serve to shape and transform; a civic university at the heart of London; and an international community that services the world. Our ambitious Education Strategy sets out the actions that we must take to transform how we teach, how and where our students learn and how we support them during their time with us.
King’s heritage collections include King’s Archives and the Foyle Special Collections library, spanning from the 15th Century until the modern day. They are of international standing and contain many rare or unique items. They serve King’s, the global research community, and the public and offer a wealth of opportunities for teaching and research. Together they form part of our local, national, and international documentary heritage.
Libraries & Collections comprises four departments: Education & Learning, Research & Impact, Service Design & Delivery, along with Business Operations. We are part of the Students & Education Directorate, which manages the student lifecycle from application to graduation and beyond.
About the role
This role will focus on the development and delivery of projects that will bring King’s heritage collections to a wide audience, including researchers, academics and students, communities and partners in London and around the world.
The role holder will collaborate with colleagues across Libraries & Collections to produce new and innovative ideas to create opportunities for the use of our physical and digital collections in widening public engagement and to foster partnerships across the heritage sector, in business and in academia. This will include delivering events hosted by Libraries & Collections.
They will build good relations with the King’s fundraising team, King’s Culture, Digital Humanities and the King’s Institute for AI amongst others and will work across Libraries & Collections to develop a fundraising plan to secure investment in our collections for the future. The role holder will coordinate the writing of research grants to fund specific projects and explore how L&C expertise and specialisms can facilitate the creation of new knowledge at King’s.
This is a new role and provides an opportunity for experienced candidates who enjoy working in a project-based manner and who wish to use their networks, skills and expertise in the discovery and use of cultural collections.
We encourage applications from candidates who have experience from both within and outside of the Higher Education sector where they can demonstrate the skills needed to succeed in this role
This is a part time post (21 Hours per week), and you will be offered an indefinite contract.
About You
To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

• Relevant work experience: Substantial experience in producing high-quality exhibitions, organising conferences and public programmes and the curation of cultural collections, ideally in the heritage sector. Relevant educational experience should include holding a professionally accredited library/museum/information/archives qualification.
• Experience of writing and managing successful research grants and projects
• Experience of organising and hosting public events, including conferences.
• Ability to connect with a wide range of people and build constructive relationships to build engagement with King’s heritage collections.
• Good planning and organisational skills to manage and deliver projects to deadline and within budget.
• Experience of managing risk and making difficult decisions with willingness to take ownership of those decisions.
• Able to demonstrate a visible commitment to Diversity & Inclusion policies and practices.
• Expert knowledge of curatorial practice and digital preservation techniques that enhance access to the content of heritage collections.

Desirable criteria

• Experience of public speaking and using social media for marketing and communications campaigns.
• Knowledge of UK and wider heritage collections and how they have been used to enhance teaching and research.
• Experience of working on a successful fundraising campaign

Full details of the role and the skills and experience required can be found in the attached job description which is provided on the next page.
Further information
We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.
We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King’s.
Please submit a supporting statement when applying for this vacancy, clearly setting out how you meet the essential criteria, as this is how we shortlist applications. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please included your evidence against these where possible.
To find out how our managers review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.
This role does not meet the requirements of the Home Office and therefore we are not able to offer sponsorship for candidates who require the right to work in the UK

Please refer the Job description for details