Head of Digital & Technology Research
Mathematics and Statistics,Mathematics,Statistics,Computer Science,Computer Science,Information Systems,Artificial Intelligence,Library Services and Information Management,Senior Management
Short info about job
Company: The National Archives
Salary: £41,970 to £55,768 per annum, plus excellent benefits
Hours: Full Time
Contract type: Permanent
Type / Role: Academic or Research
Phone: +44-1478 9870635
Fax: +44-1292 2183227
E-mail: N\A
Site: N\A
Detail information about job Head of Digital & Technology Research. Terms and conditions vacancy
About the role
The National Archives has set itself the ambition of becoming a digital archive by instinct and design. The digital strategy takes this forward through the notion of a disruptive archive which positively reimagines established archival practice, and develops new ways of solving core digital challenges. In relation to digital preservation of the public record, our challenges are not only about capturing and storing complex data, digital objects and systems, but also about making these accessible and exploitable. This leads us to ask fundamental research questions such as:
- How could we preserve, contextualize and present a neural network or trained Machine Learning system?
- How will we enable our users to access and make sense of large scale unstructured data?
- Longer term – what might quantum computing mean for digital archives?
You will develop our digital and data research programme whilst undertaking research as a senior researcher in your own right, to help us answer our core challenges around digital archival practice and delivery. You will understand and navigate through the funding landscape, applying to key funders (RCUK and others) to support our research ambitions. You will build relations internally at a senior level to articulate priorities around digital archiving, whilst developing collaborative relationships with key research partners across academia and industry. You will also undertake horizon scanning of the research landscape, tracking and engaging with relevant research projects nationally and internationally.
About you
You will join us with a doctorate in a mathematical or computational discipline with a specialism in one or more of the following areas: digital preservation; Bayesian statistics; programming; Natural Language Processing and text mining; data mining; Machine Learning; visualisation of large and complex datasets; linked data and semantic searching.
As someone who will be mentoring and managing a team of researchers, as well as leading on digital programing across the organisation, you will need to be a natural at inspiring and engaging the people you work with. You will also have the confidence to engage broadly with external stakeholders and partners, and will come with demonstrable experience of relationship development at a senior level with the academic and research sectors. You combine strategic leadership with a solid understanding of the tools and technologies that will underpin the development of a research programme around the challenges of preserving, contextualising and presenting digital records and data. Join us here in beautiful Kew, just 10 minutes walk from the Overground and Underground stations, and you can expect an excellent range of benefits. They include a pension, flexible working and childcare vouchers, as well as discounts with local businesses. We also offer well-being resources (e.g. onsite therapists) and have an on-site gym, restaurant, shop and staff bar.
For further information, including essential criteria and details on how to apply, please see: https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi?jcode=1543657