Research degree funding opportunities

In partnership with Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and Kingston's Department of Architecture and Landscape.

Kingston School of Art and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, welcome applications for an AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Partnership studentship: Plants on the move: Kew and the circulation of people, knowledge and plants between Britain and continental Europe. This is offered under the TECHNE Doctoral Training Partnership Scheme, to begin in October 2022.

Deadline for expressions of interest:

• Sunday 23 January 2022, midnight (GMT).
• Interviews with shortlisted applicants: 1 February 2022.

Project supervisors:

Dr Kristof Fatsar and Dr Éadaoin Agnew of Kingston University, in collaboration with Professor Mark Nesbitt and Ms Kiri Ross-Jones of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Project vision

In Georgian Britain, the Royal Gardens at Kew were a principal destination for plants newly collected by the expanding global network of British botanists and plant hunters. The ‘discovery' and appropriation of economic plants by Kew, and its connections with other botanic gardens within the British Empire, have been the subject of intense scholarly investigation in the last decades. However, the role of Kew Gardens as an international hub for distribution of new ornamental plants to other designed landscapes, particularly within Europe, has received little attention. Placing Kew at its centre, this project aims to address this knowledge gap by focusing on how the more inland parts of Europe became 'secondary beneficiaries' of Britain's global level of colonialism in exchanging plant material, staff, and knowledge.

This research aims to understand:

1. How, and to what extent, professional and personal connections channelled botanical and horticultural knowledge and living plants across the European continent, reaching even its peripheries.
2. How this interconnection affected continental Europe, playing a part in eventually transforming many European landscapes.
3. What the implications of these findings are for understanding the role of gardens in circulating and receiving plants resulting from colonialism, within Europe, and what the implications of this might be for European gardens today.

These are ambitious questions, with a great deal of available evidence (described below). This will be handled first through a ‘big data' quantitative survey, using evidence from Kew's Plant Record books and other archives, but potentially also digitised books and journals, looking at a region chosen according to the student's interests and language skills (e.g. France or German-speaking Europe); and second, case studies requiring intensive research in selected overseas archives. We will support the student in developing a methodology appropriate to their interests; between Kew and Kingston we can support diverse analytical techniques, including digital visualisation and analysis of networks. 

Kew is an exceptional base for the project, with one of the world's largest botanical libraries and archives. The focus will fall within the period 1760-1850, potentially allowing a study of change through time. Kew manuscripts include the Director's Correspondence, Kew Plant Record Books (detailing plant exchanges with institutions and individuals globally), and important sets of personal papers of Georgian botanists; supplementary material is held nearby at institutions including the Natural History Museum and Linnean Society. A major innovation in the project is the use of records made by travelling garden lovers, amateur botanists and gardening professionals from continental Europe, who wrote on the layout and systematic display of plants in the gardens, and their meetings with curators and gardeners of botanic gardens. These sources have been little used by British garden historians.

For informal enquires about the project contact Dr Kristof Fatsar: K.Fatsar@kingston.ac.uk or Professor Mark Nesbitt: M.Nesbitt@kew.org

Award details

Subject to AHRC eligibility criteria, the studentship covers tuition fees (home rate only) and a grant (stipend) towards living expenses. AHRC studentship rates for 2022-23 are yet to be announced - the doctoral stipend for 2021-22 was £17,609 (three and a half years full-time or part-time equivalent for seven years); levels are likely to rise slightly for 2022-23. Collaborative Doctoral Students also receive an additional stipend of £550. Students can apply for an additional six months stipend to engage in extended development activities such as work placements. See AHRC funding and training for full details.

 As a TECHNE student, the selected applicant will have full access to the TECHNE Doctoral Training Partnership development activities and networking opportunities, joining a cohort of almost 60 students per year from across ten universities in the UK.

Student eligibility

We are open to applicants with varied Masters level (or equivalent) skills, for example in garden history, history of science, or historical geography, preferably with experience of archive research and an interest in public engagement.

Research-level expertise in a relevant European language will be necessary. The student will learn how to manage quantitative and qualitative data in several countries and languages, developing strong historical research skills. Working within a major research institute and world class library and archive on a topic of strong public interest, the student will also develop an understanding of institutional functioning, and skills in public history and engagement. There will be abundant opportunities to contribute to Kew's public engagement through different media, including blog posts, video, temporary events, workshops, exhibitions, and through Kew's long-term project to update all its interpretation. This PhD would lead to a wide range of possible careers in the heritage sector.

Applicants must satisfy AHRC eligibility requirements and terms and conditions.

Students who are fee assessed as 'international' are eligible for the stipend to support living costs and tuition fees at the UK rate. UKRI funding will not cover international fees set by universities.

The proposed studentship (subject to selection by the TECHNE Panel) will fund a full-time PhD studentship for three and a half years or part time study for up to seven years (50% FTE and above).

Application process

Please send your expression of interest for this project by email to: KSAresearch-applications@kingston.ac.uk

Please title your email 'CDA' and give the relevant partner institute's name.

Applications should comprise the following:

• 1-2 page statement outlining your interest in this research project.
• A copy of your first degree and postgraduate qualifications.
• A current CV (no more than 2 pages).
• A sample of your academic work.

Applications must be received by Kingston University no later than Sunday 23 January 2022, midnight (GMT).

Interviews for shortlisted candidates will be on 1 February 2022.

The selected candidate will then be supported by supervisors and partners to complete a TECHNE application for final submission to TECHNE by Monday 14 March 2022.

Results of this second stage competition will be known by May 2022.

In partnership with London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and Kingston's Contemporary Art Research Centre.

Kingston School of Art and London Borough of Barking and Dagenham welcome applications for an AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Partnership studentship: Subjects of Data: Bridging the gap between data systems and the lived experiences of local people in Barking and Dagenham. This is offered under the TECHNE Doctoral Training Partnership Scheme, to begin in October 2022.

Deadline for expressions of interest: Sunday 23 January 2022, midnight (GMT).

Interviews: from w/c 31 January 2022.

Project supervisors:

Mr Nelson Douglas and Mr Volker Eichelmann, Kingston School of Art and Architecture in collaboration with Ann Marie Peña and Pye Nyunt of London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.

Project vision

Data not only represents lives and societies but crucially makes and shapes the very lives it is thought to represent. Current modes of data collation, transformation and representation continue to operate on processes established as part of the project of colonial expansion and, despite their problematic history remain fundamental to how ‘we' understand – and organise – ‘our' world (Theweleit, 2020).

This CDA seeks to intervene in this complex of the collection and representation of information by asking how to develop a decolonial, anti-racist framework for the handling of records, given the centrality of its very mode of operation and conceptualisation to historical and contemporary forms of oppression and marginalisation. Conducted in partnership between London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (LBBD) and Kingston School of Art, the CDA will employ a multi-disciplinary approach based on artistic research strategies contesting received modes of reading and presenting ‘facts' (e.g. Stephen Willats, Walid Raad's Atlas Group, Hans Haacke, The Otolith Group, and Forensic Architecture) in order to question and challenge our understanding of what data is and how it is employed to create specific images of the subjects it is seen to represent. In doing so, this doctoral project seeks to explore alternate and divergent models of data processing with particular attention to practice-based forms of knowledge. The CDA will draw, amongst others on artworks and documents kept in Barking and Dagenham's archives such as those held at Valence House whose Frogley Manuscript for instance provides an unofficial record of lived data and alternative recounting of lives within the borough. Apart from unprecedented access to LBBD's archives to gather alternate representations of historical experiences – including parish registers going back to the 16th century, 19th century Tithe records and 20th century Trade directories – this CDA will allow the candidate to work closely with the council's data management team to share and discuss their research. They will present their findings through a series of public events, including research-in-progress exhibitions and talks, that are to take place virtually (facilitated by LBBD's online resources) and in-real-life at Valence House Museum and the Borough Archives. Embracing an expanded Fine Art practice outcomes are likely to draw on various media such as moving-image, photography, sound and text, drawing and diagrams, and performance in order to re-present both historical records and contemporary accounts gathered through interviews and workshops held with local audiences.

Central to the CDA will be the opportunity to work directly with LBBD's ‘data subjects', those living and working in the community whose collated data shapes and informs the borough's policy making. Here, the CDA is to mine and explore the disparity currently existing between public engagement strategies based around a projected white, British community and the actuality of a diverse and complex make-up of ethnicities and cultures predominate within the borough. Through engaging in participatory methods that engage LBBD's local public, this CDA thus aims to address fundamental questions central to wider council policies and community planning, predicated on a decolonial and anti-racist artistic practice.

For informal enquires about the project email Mr Volker Eichelmann, Associate Professor.

Award details

Subject to AHRC eligibility criteria, the studentship covers tuition fees (home rate only) and a grant (stipend) towards living expenses. AHRC studentship rates for 2022-23 are yet to be announced - the doctoral stipend for 2021-22 was £17,609 (three and a half years full-time or part-time equivalent for seven years); levels are likely to rise slightly for 2022-23. Collaborative Doctoral Students also receive an additional stipend of £550. Students can apply for an additional six months stipend to engage in extended development activities such as work placements. See AHRC funding and training for full details

As a TECHNE student, the selected applicant will have full access to the TECHNE Doctoral Training Partnership development activities and networking opportunities, joining a cohort of almost 60 students per year from across ten universities in the UK.

Student eligibility

Applicants should hold a BA and MA (desirable) in Fine Art, Filmmaking, or similar studies in contemporary art practice – however LBBD encourages candidates from a diversity of pathways who can demonstrate equivalent experience. The candidate should evidence a good track record of having undertaken community-based artwork and experience addressing the use of data, including relevant field work and IT knowledge.

The candidate will develop essential knowledge of working within a local council such as LBBD. The fusing of issues central to academic, artistic and public-engagement concerns will provide a unique context for the candidate to work in. The CDA will allow the candidate not only to undertake their doctoral research but enable them to create valuable networks locally, nationally and internationally as part of LBBD's arts and cultures initiatives to make a significant contribution to cultural and policy debates.

Applicants must satisfy AHRC eligibility requirements and terms and conditions.

Students who are fee assessed as ‘international' are eligible for the stipend to support living costs and tuition fees at the UK rate. UKRI funding will not cover international fees set by universities.

The proposed studentship (subject to selection by the TECHNE Panel) will fund a full-time PhD studentship for three and a half years or part time study for up to seven years (50% FTE and above).

Application process

Please send your expression of interest for this project by email to: KSAresearch-applications@kingston.ac.uk
Please title your email ‘CDA' and give the relevant partner institute's name.

Applications should comprise the following:

• A one-to-two page statement outlining your interest in this research project.
• A copy of your first degree and postgraduate qualifications.
• A current CV (no more than two pages).
• A sample of your academic work.

Applications must be received by Kingston University no later than Sunday 23 January 2022, midnight (GMT).

Interviews for shortlisted candidates will be from w/c 31 January 2022.

The selected candidate will then be supported by supervisors and partners to complete a TECHNE application for final submission to TECHNE by Monday 14 March 2022.

Results of this second stage competition will be known by May 2022.