We’re delighted to partner with the British Library and invite applications for three-month doctoral fellowships centred on specific aspects of the British Library and National Trust collections as part of our ongoing research partnership.
These fellowships help both the Library and the Trust to interrogate the history, provenance and accessibility of national and international collections, enabling us to use and present them in the most honest way possible. Launched in 2021, our doctoral fellowships aim to establish collaborative research and increase public knowledge about how National Trust and British Library collections have intertwined throughout history.
Any open opportunities will be posted below.
The National Trust Sound Archive is the second largest oral history collection held at the British Library, consisting of more than 1,700 items recorded from the 1980s to the present day by 157 National Trust properties. The collection is frequently requested by onsite researchers at the Library, but a significant amount of work is required to enhance discoverability and reusability of the interviews. In particular, work is needed to investigate and ascertain the full copyright status of 1,300 of the 1,700 recordings in the collection, and to review the interviews for sensitivities under GDPR before access conditions can be determined.
The aim of this project is for a student to undertake the necessary work for the recordings belonging to a minimum of three National Trust properties to be catalogued with enhanced metadata and the rights status ascertained. These ‘case study’ properties have been selected based on the likelihood of their generating a high number of recordings that can be cleared and catalogued, so that the student’s work on them will have immediate and demonstrable results. The student will also work with the Trust and Library colleagues to plan a strategy to roll out the approach to sets of interviews in the collection recorded by other Trust properties.
The fellowship will be hosted at the British Library, offering the student hands-on experience of working with digital audio archives. The student will work closely with colleagues at the Trust and conduct site visits to properties, where appropriate, to benefit from the expertise of staff and volunteers in the history of the properties and the oral history collection.
The deadline for applications is Friday 5 June 2026 at 12 noon.
Please send a completed application form (link below) to oralhistory@nationaltrust.org.uk
The appointed fellow will receive a stipend equivalent to the UKRI minimum doctoral stipend (plus London weighting), as well as reasonable expenses for any fellowship-related travel.
We're an Independent Research Organisation recognised by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Our research takes place in many forms – from the PhDs we sponsor and practical testing of new conservation techniques to the hundreds of research projects we collaborate in or host at places in our care each year.
Learn more about our research – from the PhDs we sponsor and practical testing of conservation techniques to the hundreds of projects we collaborate in or host each year.
Learn how research helps us understand changes in the world around us, discover more about the places the Trust cares for and find practical solutions to conservation problems.
