About Us

We are a world-class visitor attraction and leading science research centre. We use the Museum's unique collections and our unrivalled expertise to tackle the biggest challenges facing the world today. We care for more than 80 million objects spanning billions of years and welcome more than five million visitors annually and 16 million visits to our website.

Today the Museum is more relevant and influential than ever. By attracting people from a range of backgrounds to work for us, we can continue to look at the world with fresh eyes and find new ways of doing things.

We employ 900 staff in a variety of roles, all united by our vision of a future where people and planet thrive. We need everyone to have the passion and drive to help us with our mission to create advocates for our planet and inspire millions to care about the natural world.

Diversity and inclusion matter to us.

Our vision is of a future where both people and the planet thrive. Diversity is one of our core values and we strive to build a workplace where everyone feels a sense of belonging. All new staff who join us learn about the importance of diversity and inclusion to the Museum and how to contribute to creating an inclusive environment.

We know we have more to do, but we are committed to ensuring that everyone who works at the Museum feels they can thrive and feel valued and respected.

About the role

Background to the project: Oceans are experiencing unprecedented loss in biodiversity. Wild seaweeds support high biodiversity, yet in some areas they are predicted to lose up to 71% of their current distribution by 2100. Sustainable seaweed cultivation offers a nature-based, climate resilient solution to protect, restore and conserve wild seaweeds globally. The industry also benefits the livelihoods of over 6 million farmers, particularly smallholders and women in developing countries in SE Asia and globally. We aim to support these farmers’ livelihoods, develop climate resilient seaweed cultivars, launch a global seaweed conservation strategy, develop novel approaches for seaweed resource management and attract further investment to safeguard this industry. To address this aim, we are addressing the following: the key steps required to promote investment in the global protection, conservation and restoration of wild seaweed stocks, and their associated biodiversity, and to integrate this with the sustainable management of the seaweed aquaculture industry at a time of accelerating climate impact.

The post: We are seeking an enthusiastic, highly engaged PDRA to join our team for six months on the project: GlobalSeaweed SUPERSTAR, Supporting livelihoods by protecting, enhancing and restoring biodiversity by securing the future of the seaweed aquaculture industry in developing countries, a Defra-funded project as part of the UK Government’s Global Centre on Biodiversity for Climate (GCBC) programme (https://www.gcbc.org.uk/).

The team consists of Professor Elizabeth Cottier-Cook (Scottish Institute for Marine Science), Professor Juliet Brodie (Natural History Museum) and Professor Phaik Eem Lim (University of Malaysia).

You will have experience in marine – ideally seaweeds - biodiversity, conservation and aquaculture. You will be employed at the Natural History Museum to work on two main components of one of the project’s Work Packages (WP): ‘To conserve wild seaweed-associated biodiversity and farmed cultivars globally.’

This is an exciting and novel project where you will be working closely with the WP lead, Prof. Brodie and with your counterpart PDRAs in the University of Malaya and the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS).

About you

You will have knowledge and experience working with seaweeds, including an understanding of seaweed diversity. You will also have knowledge and ideally experience of IUCN Red Listing and other conservation approaches. An ability to work with databases, and to analyse and synthesize information, including from worksheets completed by a wide range of people will be necessary. You should have knowledge and experience within a data-driven environment, including a working knowledge of GIS, R and statistical analysis as well as data visualisation. You will be innovative and ambitious to create novel approaches to the work. An ability to work in a team and independently is necessary, along with excellent communication, organisational and planning skills. You will be a careful worker with close attention to detail and able to work at pace and to tight deadlines. You will also need to demonstrate excellent oral and written English skills.

Thriving at the Museum: the way we work

We are proud to work at the Museum and have identified the qualities we all need to embody to reach our shared ambition. This sits alongside the Museum’s values and forms the framework for the way we work.

Find out more here

What we offer

• 27.5 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays (full time equivalent)
• Generous defined contribution Natural History Museum Pension Scheme (employer contribution 4 - 10%)
• Season ticket, bicycle and rental loan
• Life insurance
• Free admission to our exhibitions and many other paid exhibitions at museums, galleries and institutions across London and the UK.
• Staff discount at our Museum shops and cafes
• We offer a wide variety of training initiatives and opportunities to build skills. Investing in staff development is important to us, and we are ambitious about helping staff to grow and fulfil their potential.
• Affordable membership to the Civil Service Sports Council which offers a range of benefits including an extensive list of special offers and reduced entry fees at a selection of cinema chains, theme parks, theatres, retailers and supermarkets. It also provides entry to up to 300 English Heritage sites and other national treasures. For more details, visit https://www.cssc.co.uk
• Membership to our Sports and Social Association (for a small fee), which includes access to our in-house gym and clubs such as football, softball, table tennis and tennis and classes in Middle Eastern dance, yoga and Tai Chi

Hybrid working

We are working towards a vision where both people and planet thrive, and nothing gives a greater connection with this, than seeing first-hand, the visitors, scientific research and collections that all of our work is inspired by and working side by side with the teams delivering the visitor experience and events. We also recognise the benefits and flexibility that hybrid working brings. We operate a hybrid working model that requires regular, weekly attendance for this role, with the precise pattern of days on site and worked from home to be agreed with your manager.

How to apply

If this sounds like you, please apply below by clicking on Apply for job.

Please note that as part of our commitment to anonymised shortlisting, panels do not view CVs during the recruitment process. If you choose to upload your CV, our system will automatically pull information from your CV into our application form. We advise you to double-check your application form data before submitting as the tool may interpret CVs differently.

Closing date: 18 August 2025, 23:59

Interviews expected: w/c 01 September 2025

Please note that this role does not qualify for Museum sponsorship so the successful postholder will need to have a valid right to work in the UK at the point of offer.