New fellowship program at British Museum

Programme of
Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellowships for scientists
at the British Museum

The Department of Conservation and Scientific Research at the
British Museum is delighted to announce that, with support from The
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, it is now able to establish a long-term
programme of postdoctoral research fellowships for scientists. An
endowment of $1,250,000 from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will be
combined with funds raised by the British Museum to be used over the
next 16 years (2010-2026) to provide a sequence of eight three-year
fellowships.

Building on the success of the existing programme and the two
existing fellowships, the aim of these postdoctoral fellowships will
be to continue to attract outstanding scientists into the
disciplines of examination, conservation, preservation and technical
interpretation of artefacts, thereby strengthening these fields for
the future. The British Museum and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
believe that postdoctoral training in museums and galleries offers
the most effective method of developing the next generation of
scientists and are committed to providing opportunities for these
postdoctoral fellows to obtain, by working in collaboration with
existing experienced staff, a breadth of knowledge about the
applications of scientific method to the examination of museum
collections and experience in planning and conducting original
research within cross-disciplinary teams. We hope that the
fellowship programme will continue to open new fields of research,
perhaps drawing on developments in scientific disciplines that are
not yet well represented in the heritage sector.

The first of these three-year fellowships will be advertised
shortly, with the successful applicant expected to take up their
post at the British Museum in autumn 2010. A second fellowship will
be advertised early in 2011.


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 23:28
                 Distributed: Friday, February 5, 2010
                       Message Id: cdl-23-28-002
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