The Future Leader Fellowship provides a unique opportunity for early-career researchers to develop their scientific portfolio and skills in a vibrant research environment, working with colleagues in Kew Science to make substantial contributions to challenges facing humanity.

Kew offers five Future Leader Fellowships each year, aligned to our five Research Priorities. This Fellowship is within the Digital Revolution Priority. The successful candidate will be based at Kew.

Line managed by a senior researcher, the candidate will be benefit from opportunities for development that include – but are not limited to - training workshops on topics from grant writing to research impact, a mentorship programme, bi-annual meetings with the Director of Science, and other chances for researcher-led training. They will also be able to apply for secondment and research funding internally and are encouraged to use this funding to travel for their research.

Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (RBG Kew) holds a wealth of data about plants and fungi and their presence in our collections.

Within Kew’s Science Strategy, the “Digital Revolution” has been identified as a priority, putting the management and use of our digital assets at the heart of our scientific agenda. The Future Leader Fellow will be data literate and motivated to maximise the use of Kew’s data. This could be through novel approaches that disambiguate digital texts and images, integrate data of diverse provenance, or detect hidden patterns in reference data to support classification, predictive modelling, and hypothesis generation

Due to the ongoing four-year Digitisation project, RBG Kew is generating nearly 10 million digital images which can be linked to their use as evidence through specimen citation in associated datasets and literature. This role is to explore and deliver research into the integration of these image sets with allied data to assist taxonomic experts and to facilitate downstream research.

As part of this role, the successful FLF, will need to define a programme of work consisting of several small projects designed to maximise the impact of Kew’s data among researchers. A potential set of projects based on computer vision applied to our herbarium specimen images include: 1) Automated segmentation image analysis 2) Metadata combination including images 3) Trend and modelling analysis from grounded data 4) Exploration of future image-based methodologies. We welcome other projects / programmes in your research plan but you must show how these advance the work of the digital revolution priority. Note that our particular remit is not to answer biological research questions directly but to enable downstream researchers to do so, using our collections, data and expertise as evidence.

Applicants must include a CV and a research plan as attachments on their online application form. The research plan does not have a set format but should not exceed three sides of A4. The research plan should provide an outline of what your plans would be for the four-year Fellowship, which will then be developed into a full research plan in collaboration with your line manager if successful.

Interviews are likely to take place in summer 2023, with the Fellowship commencing from September 2023 onwards.

This role is based at Kew with the option of regular home working, subject to operational requirements.

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew) is a leading plant science institute, UNESCO World Heritage Site, and major visitor attraction. Our mission is to understand and protect plants and fungi for the well-being of people and the future of all life on Earth.

We are working to end the unprecedented extinction crisis and to help create a world where nature is protected, valued by all and managed sustainably. We will achieve these goals by drawing on our leading scientific research, unrivalled collections of plants and fungi, global network of partners, inspirational gardens at Kew and Wakehurst, and our 260 years of history.

Our fantastic benefits package includes opportunities for continuous learning, a generous annual leave entitlement, flexible working to help you maintain a healthy work-life balance, an Employee Assistance Programme and other wellbeing support such as cycle to work scheme and discounted gym membership. We also offer a competitive pension, an employee discount scheme and free entry into a wide range of national museums and galleries, as well as access to our own beautiful gardens at Kew and Wakehurst.

If you are interested in this position, please submit your application through the online portal, by clicking “Apply for this job”.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from all sections of the community. We guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the post.

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Career Opportunity / 16 July 2023

Kew Research Fellow - Digital Revolution

Stephanie O'Donnell

WILDLABS

Fauna & Flora

Groups

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