PhD Researcher 'Historical Bio-Based Treatment Methods for Heritage Conservation'

Are you looking for a challenging position in a dynamic setting? The Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM) currently has a vacant PhD position as part of the GoGREEN project, led by principal investigator Prof. Katrien Keune. AHM is one of the five Research Schools within the Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research .

The Programme Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage at UvA, where the PhD will be located, hosts the only academic conservation training programme in the Netherlands. It is affiliated to the Netherlands Institute for Conservation, Art and Science (NICAS), and shares its conservation and research laboratories with the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.

What are you going to do?

This PhD will investigate historical recipes for conservation treatments (focused on cleaning of painted surfaces and on the stabilisation of active corrosion of glass/ceramic and metal objects). Such recipes were developed in a low-tech environment using natural, unrefined, non-synthetic materials and may provide inspiration for green(er) alternatives to current methods. Using recipe analysis, reconstruction and chemical characterisation, the PhD will select methods for further development, towards their integration into conservation practice.

The PhD position is offered within the EU Horizon-CL2-2021 Heritage project "GoGREEN: green strategies to conserve the past and preserve the future of Cultural Heritage", a four-year research project with 12 partners (universities, museums and research institutes) from 5 European countries and 2 affiliated countries. GoGREEN responds to the UN 17 sustainable development goals by providing conservators with solutions to practice conservation with lower energy consumption, less toxic materials and fewer plastics. Within the project, we develop theory, tools, materials, decision making aids and educational material that will support conservators in choosing and applying green strategies, both for preventive and remedial conservation.

This PhD research is executed at UvA; the PhD project is executed in close collaboration with the University of Bologna and the Haute Ecole Arc Conservation Restauration in Neuchâtel. Historically inspired methods will be tested in parallel with newly engineered methods (bio-based, non-toxic, renewable) developed by these partners, and the PhD research is executed in collaboration with researchers from these institutes.

Tasks and responsibilities:

• submission of a PhD thesis within the period of appointment;
• participating in GoGREEN meetings;
• contributing to the wider goals of GoGREEN work packages 3 and 4 (development of new green materials for remedial conservation);
• publishing three peer reviewed articles (PhD thesis is article-based);
• contributing to educational material (written, video) for conservators on the topic of the PhD;
• presenting intermediate research results at workshops and conferences;
• (co-)organising knowledge dissemination activities;
• participation in the Research School and Faculty of Humanities PhD training programmes.