Research Assistant

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Department of English
Location:  Egham
Salary: 
Starting Salary is £14.71 per hour (including London Allowance)
Post Type:  Part Time
Closing Date: 
23.59 hours BST on Tuesday 27 June 2023
Reference:  0523-221

Casual Post (100 hours in total) Fixed Term until 31 July 2024.

Applications are invited for the post of Research Assistant in the Department of English, on a project entitled Climate Keywords: Towards a Digital Analysis of Environmental Concepts in the UN Corpus. 

This British Academy-funded project is the beginning of a larger programme of research into the data holdings of the United Nations. You will be joining a small team which will make significant inroads into preparing the UN’s digital corpora for distant reading. A key goal will be the production of bespoke corpora amenable to the application of lexical association measures which will identify patterns in lexis in the aforementioned corpora. Our aim in this digital enquiry is to begin to outline the historical ways in which UN member states have conceptualised climate through the decades. You will play a crucial role in enabling non-expert users to investigate the UN’s data sets in general, and to explore our findings as they relate to environmental concept sin particular. This is an exciting project which will uncover genuinely new knowledge about the history of environmental discourse. 

You will have 3rd-year undergraduate coding skills in Python and R. You will be required to work alongside an established computer scientist to prepare UN data for investigation using custom-designed lexical association and visualisation packages, all of which will be explained to you. This role would suit a Masters or early Ph.D-level computer scientist or computationally-literate corpus linguist. You will gain significant, hands-on experience of starting a digital research project in the humanities, the organisation of a research event which will be held over a weekend in December, and the collation of data which will form the basis of at least two academic articles. The team will be comprised of the P.I, an advisor and you. 

In return we offer a highly competitive rewards and benefits package including:

• Generous annual leave entitlement 
• Training and Development opportunities
• Pension Scheme with generous employer contribution 
• Various schemes including Cycle to Work, Season Ticket Loans and help with the cost of Eyesight testing. 
• Free parking 

The post is based in Egham, Surrey where the College is situated in a beautiful, leafy campus near to Windsor Great Park and within commuting distance from London. 

For an informal discussion about the post, please contact Dr John Regan at [email protected]

For queries on the application process the Human Resources Department can be contacted by email at: [email protected]  

Royal Holloway recognises the importance of helping its employees balance their work and home life by offering flexible working arrangements.  We are happy to consider a request for flexible working for this post including part time, job share or compressed working hours.

Please quote the reference: 0523-221

Closing Date:   23:59, 27 June 2023

Interview Date: 11 July 2023

Please note that it will not be possible for the College to issue a Certificate of Sponsorship for successful candidates as the pro-rata salary will not meet the minimum threshold set by UK Visas and Immigration. Successful candidates will therefore need to be eligible to work in the UK or have limited leave to remain in the UK and associated right to work for the duration of their employment with the College, in accordance with the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006. 

Royal Holloway is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), and encourages applications from all people regardless of age, disability, gender, marital status, parental status, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, or trans status or history. More information on our structures and initiatives around EDI, including information on staff diversity networks, can be found on our Equality and Diversity Intranet page .