The Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA) is the leading professional body representing archaeologists working in the UK and overseas. CIfA’s aim is for all professional archaeologists to have the skills, integrity and versatility to ensure archaeology brings real benefit to people’s daily lives. We work with employers, universities and training providers, government, trade unions, clients, other sector partners, and other professional bodies to improve professional archaeology through competence and knowledge; recognition and respect; career pathways and prospects; diversity and skills; ethical awareness; value and public benefit.
Our work is divided in four core areas of activity:
Training and development - We provide access to training, good practice advice and guidance, and support to strengthen entry routes into the profession
Accreditation - We recognise and promote the skills and competence of professional archaeologists
Regulation of the profession - Our Code of conduct and Standards and guidance define good, ethical practice in archaeology. They provide the organisation, structures and mechanisms for self-regulation, allowing the profession to take responsibility for the assurance of the quality of our work, monitor it, and hold members to account
Networking - We provide an active community of professional archaeologists to support and shape our profession.
This micro-internship is co-hosted by the Heritage Partnerships Team, which is based in The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities. The vision for the TORCH Heritage Programme is to enable ambitious and mutually beneficial partnerships that connect Oxford’s world-leading expertise with the UK and international Heritage Sector through three core areas of activity: building partnerships, growing expertise and sharing knowledge.
CIfA and the Heritage Partnerships Team have been working together to enhance collaboration between Heritage and Academia and to establish career development opportunities for students and early career professionals in the historic environment.
Working alongside the CIfA Membership Team and Heritage Partnerships Team of the University of Oxford, this micro-internship will undertake comparative research using existing data sources to investigate the diversity of the archaeology sector focussing on age, gender, sexual orientation, disability and ethnicity. Available data sources include the Profiling the profession 2020/21 survey, 2020 CIfA membership survey and data on the student population, as well as Office for National Statistics (ONS) data on the working population of the UK for comparison.
What you will do:
Working remotely, both independently and as part of a team, you will undertake desk-based research using a range of online resources to compare different aspects of diversity across the student body, the wider archaeology sector and CIfA membership.
Using information available online and/or CIfA datasets, you will identify similarities and differences in diversity statistics across the datasets, set against criteria such as job role, contract length and seniority. You will also review the datasets for archaeology against similar data for the UK workforce as a wholee
Summary discussions will require individuals to work together to identify the most effective ways of presenting the data and to draw conclusions from the available data for presentation to the CIfA Membership Team.
You will present your findings in team briefings, and in two written formats: You will write a short report to be used by CIfA in the development of their career resources. You will also have the opportunity to reflect on your project and your experience in a blogpost to be published on the TORCH Heritage Programme website.
What you will gain:
By the end of the micro-internship, you will have gained:
Experience in sector-specific surveying of labour market intelligence.
Insight into the make-up and diversity of the archaeology sector.
Experience in interdisciplinary collaboration.
Experience in writing for both a professional and a general audience.
Experience in working remotely, independently and as part of a team, with remote supervision.
Presentation skills.
Candidates will be considered from any subject area, from second-year undergraduate level and above. They should possess good written communication skills, experience of reviewing and summarising information, and the ability to work both independently and as part of a team. An interest in heritage, the historic environment (broadly defined), equality and diversity, and interdisciplinarity is desirable.
Monday 6 – Friday 10 September 2021 OR Monday 13–Friday 17 September 2021
Students are required to commit to the full micro-internship - as with any professional placement - and any concerns about dates should be raised with the Internship Office in advance of making an application.
