Black and African Canadian Scientific and Technological Innovations Fellowship

Ingenium—Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation invites applications for our Black and African Canadian Scientific Technological Innovations Fellowship in partnership with the Black Canadian Studies Association. This fellowship was made possible by founding donor, Dr. Gervan Fearon and Dr. Kathy Moscou, with support from the Ingenium Foundation. This position is for a maximum of four months and welcomes part-time and full-time graduate students from Canadian universities.

Ingenium oversees three national museums which include the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, and the Canada Science and Technology Museum. Ingenium is responsible for Canada’s national scientific and technological collection which includes over two million archival items and more than 150,000 objects.

We are looking for fellows to design a research project related to the study of the historical and/or contemporary connections between Black and African Canadians and science and innovation. Research projects can engage with the socio-economic and cultural impacts of science and technology for Black and African Canadian individuals and communities as well as the contributions of Black and African Canadians to science and innovation.

Applicants are encouraged to think broadly and creatively about the fields of science and technology as they shape their research projects. The Fellowship provides an excellent opportunity to gain valuable heritage and curatorial work experience, and have unique access to collections that contribute to a student’s research interests.

Number of fellowships available: 2
Value: $5,000 per fellowship
Duration: A maximum of four months (Ingenium expects a minimum of 150 hours to be completed during this period)
Job type: Remote (in-person available to those living in Ottawa)

Expectations of the Fellows:

• Design and conduct a research project related to the connection between Black and African Canadian individuals and communities and science and technological innovation
• Make at least one public presentation relating to the fellow’s research and contribute to the social media efforts of Ingenium
• Disseminate knowledge learned from the research project. This can take the form of a written report, an Ingenium article, or some other form of knowledge dissemination, in addition to a public presentation
• Attend four Ingenium curatorial, acquisition approval, and collection development meetings (approx. 1 per month)
• Contribute to the curatorial discussions on collection development, exhibition, and research initiatives in the specific subject area of the fellow’s project. For example, fellows may:
  • Advise Ingenium curatorial staff on initiatives pertaining to the fellows’ area of interest
  • In accordance with the collection development strategy, and in cooperation with the pertinent curator, recommend artifacts or library and archival material for the collection, contribute to acquisition proposals, and respond to questions about proposals at the acquisition committee
  • Conduct artifact research and contribute to collection assessments for collections in pertinent subject areas
  • Advise Ingenium staff on, and participate in planning of exhibitions, loans, and outreach programming related to pertinent subject areas
  • Advise Ingenium staff on, and participate in the selection of artifacts for any digital initiatives related to pertinent subject areas

Ingenium’s responsibilities and requirements

Ingenium provides the fellow with:

• Full access to the collection warehouses and the collection database for the purposes described in the statement of work
• Training on the collection database and instructions in handling artifacts
• Full access to the library collection including rare books, trade literature and archival collections
• Support to conduct duties described in the Statement of Work, including any required technologies and materials necessary to complete their work
• If working on-site, fellows will be provided with a standard, ergonomically appropriate workspace in an open-concept environment

Fellow’s responsibilities and requirements

The fellow is required to:

• Follow all internal policies, procedures, and guidelines
• Adhere to Ingenium’s values and ethics code, when acting on behalf of Ingenium
• Adhere to Ingenium’s directive on conflict of interest, and will complete a confidential report, if applicable
• Remove no part of Ingenium’s collection from storage facilities or museums without the approval of the Director, Curatorial and Director, Collection and Conservation Services
• Follow rules and procedures for artifact handling as stipulated by collection and conservation staff
• Respect confidential and private information
• Recognize the Corporation in any publications based on research supported by Ingenium or conducted as part of this fellowship
• Be insured by their home institution or possess personal health insurance

Fellows may be required to undergo a security clearance. Ingenium requires security clearance for those wishing to have on-site access to the Ingenium collection and Ingenium IT hardware and software. Security clearance is not required for fellows who are working off-site, not accessing the collection in-person, and not using Ingenium IT hardware and software.

For fellows living in Ottawa security clearance will be conducted by Ingenium’s protection services at the Ingenium Centre. For fellows outside of Ottawa the clearance will be conducted by a third-party. All data collected during this process is kept in a safe and secure location and not shared with outside parties. The security clearance involves fingerprinting.

To be eligible for a Fellowship, an applicant must:

• Be a full time or part-time student at a Canadian university, registered in a Master’s or Doctoral program at the time of the award

Please note: Ingenium believes that inclusivity requires a socially and culturally diverse workforce. Preference may be given to Black and African candidates self-identifying as belonging to one of the employment-equity seeking groups as well as those who represent gender diversity.

This weighted scoring scheme will be used to evaluate all applications.

• Quality of the statement of intent, including relevance of the research project to Ingenium’s collection, clarity, coherence, relevance, and feasibility of the research project (50%)
• Academic excellence and community outreach as represented qualitatively and quantitatively in the CV (25%)
• Quality of the letter of recommendation from a researcher familiar with the candidates’ body of work (25%)