To provide opportunities for early-career training for PhD students, the V&A has made available a range of doctoral placements based in collections departments, archives, the National Art Library, research, and collections care and access.
Each placement is a discrete project designed by members of V&A staff (who will also act as the placement’s supervisor), involving collaborative as well as independent research. They contribute to live research projects and existing priorities, and their outputs and value to the Museum are varied; projects may lead to new insights into our collections and archives, influence Museum policy and procedures, contribute to public engagement and/or support funded projects.
In addition to the on-the-job experience of each placement and mentoring from supervisors, doctoral placement students will have access to the Museum’s wider range of workshops, talks and postgraduate training events/opportunities, alongside a bespoke training package designed for the placement student cohort.
V&A Doctoral Placements are only open to students currently studying on a funded PhD. Full details of eligibility criteria can be found in the Guidance Notes for Applicants.
We are delighted to offer the following opportunities for projects to start in Autumn 2025:
- Cataloguing a Contemporary Music Archive
- Cataloguing Printed Scores and Libretti in the Bunnett Muir Musical Theatre Trust Archive
- Craft and Natural Materials in Exhibition Design
- Developing a Digital Research Repository for the V&A
- Developing Frameworks for Born-Digital and Hybrid Collections
- Henry Cole’s travel diaries: knowledge, acquisitions and networks
- Investigating Functional and Multi-Sensory Objects in the Young V&A Collection
- Ludwig Gruner: Art Advisor to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Cataloguing and contextualising a collection of drawings and photographs
- Methodologies of audience-led collections research with children, young people and families
- Provenance Research on Ethiopian Objects
- Provenance Research on Southeast Asian Art Collections at the V&A
- Provenance Research on the NAL’s Acquisition of German Books During the Nazi Era
- Surveying and Cataloguing Roger Fenton’s Photography Collection
- Zero Waste Approaches to Exhibition Making
Please check back regularly on the V&A Vacancies Page, as additional placement opportunities will be added over the coming weeks.
Applications must be submitted online through the V&A Vacancies webpage. The closing date for each placement opportunity is listed on the advert.
For any questions, please contact Dr Oliver Cox (Head of Academic Partnerships, o.cox@vam.ac.uk (until 2nd June 2025)) and thereafter Erin Sun (Academic Programmes Coordinator, e.sun@vam.ac.uk).
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