Researcher (f/m/d) digital humanities

Our Mission: Discovering and describing life and earth - with people, through dialogue.

The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (MfN) is an excellent and integrated research museum of the Leibniz Association with an international reputation and globally networked research infrastructure. It is active in three closely interlinked fields: collection-based research, collection development and cataloguing, and research-based public and educational work. Over the next ten years, the Museum für Naturkunde will realise its plan for the future. New laboratories and jobs for cutting-edge research will be created. At the same time, one of the world's most comprehensive natural history collections with over 30 million objects will be housed in modern collection buildings and completely digitized in the process. The implementation of the Future Plan, funded with a total of 660 million euros from the Federal Government and the State of Berlin, will only succeed with strong interdisciplinary national and international partners. Become part of our team as a 

Researcher (f/m/d), 75 %

Fixed-term contract with third-party funding, as soon as possible for a period of 36 months, E 13 TV-L, code: 41/2023.

The position is part of the interdisciplinary DFG project "Research and Responsibility: Virtual access to integrated fossil and archival material from the German Tendaguru Expedition (1909-1913)" (https://www.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/en/science/digital-exploitation-fossil-and-archival-material-german-tendaguru-expedition-1909-1913 ). It is dedicated to the research-based conception, development, and implementation of an interdisciplinary virtual research environment for the indexing, contextualization, and publication of sensitive colonial historical collection, image, and written material created in the context of the so-called German Tendaguru Expedition (1909–1913).

An important goal of the project is to transparently communicate the colonial origin of the objects and to create interdisciplinary access to the materials of the Tendaguru expedition. A prerequisite for this is the responsible and sensitive handling of scientific material and archival data from colonial contexts. The position holder is therefore expected to have an understanding of these contexts and the ability to deal with these data in a reflective manner.

Responsibilities:

• Conception, development and implementation of an interdisciplinary virtual research environment in which digitized fossil material, image and written material of the Tendaguru expedition can be networked and explored in depth, in close collaboration with the second Postdoc and the PIs of the project. This includes research data management (quality assurance, data curation, long-term availability).
• Collection and indexing of data on relevant objects as well as image and written material from the Tendaguru expedition, in close cooperation with Postdoc Stelle I and the project PIs in the Historical Image and Written Material Collections of the MfN
• Publication of the research environment and central research results, taking into account the requirements of sensitive cultural property
• Networking and cooperation with national and international partners

Requirements:

• University degree (MA) in the field of digital humanities, preferably in combination with history of science, history, art studies, cultural studies, ethnology, or a related discipline, PhD desired
• Advanced knowledge and in-depth experience in the application of customized research data management (e.g., relevant standards, data publication, data archiving)
• Practical experience in building interdisciplinary research environments
• Relevant knowledge and practical experience in data model development and modeling, esp. using the CIDOC CRM
• In-depth expertise in the history of collecting, demonstrated through publications
• Excellent comprehension of debates and research topics in the field of colonial collection and museum history 
• Expertise in managing digital indexing of collections starting from multiple userperspectives
• Experience in the historiographical analysis of historical sources and other archival materials
• Knowledge of the history of the MfN
• Strong communication and teamwork skills
• Diversity competence

Special notes:

To ensure equality, applications from qualified women are particularly welcome. Severely disabled applicants will be given preference in case of equal suitability.

We look forward to receiving your application with the usual documents (cover letter, curriculum vitae, certificates) by 09.06.2023, preferably via our online application portal .

For information on the application procedure, please contact recruiting(at)mfn.berlin .

Further informations

Privacy Policy:

By sending your application, you provide us with your information for the purpose of processing your application by the Museum für Naturkunde. Your data will be kept strictly confidential at all times. Once we have received your application documents, they will be entered into our database. Your data will be stored on our server. In doing so, we observe the provisions of the data protection laws.

Information about the handling of applicant data at the MfN (in German)  and Privacy policy for the MfN website (in German)

Family Policy:

The Museum für Naturkunde has set itself the goal of promoting a work-life balance and has been awarded the certificate berufundfamilie audit of berufundfamilie gGmbH - an initiative of the Hertie Foundation.

Further information can be found under: https://www.naturkundemuseum.berlin/de/jobs-und-karriere/arbeiten-am-museum-fuer-naturkunde/audit-berufundfamilie  (in German).