Scholarships

Sir Joseph Banks Scholarships

These scholarships have been established for the study of our Economic Botany Collections (EBC). The Banks Scholarship programme has been completed and no furthur grants are available. Furthur funding is being sought. In the meantime, visiting researchers continue to be welcome, and we are usually able to advise on alternative, non-Kew, sources of funding.

Apart from their assemblage together, the great unifying feature of this immensely diverse array of objects is that the plants from which they derive are all named - in contrast to similar objects in many other institutions. There are, for example, some 2,350 objects representing the palm family and 3,250 representing the grasses. Although the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew's botanical expertise has been brought to bear on the collections, very few other disciplines have yet had their chance to study and evaluate them from other perspectives such as history, ethnography, biography, or the culture of particular people and places. There are also challenges to test even the most highly trained conservator, with materials ranging from carved resins, woods and lacquers to papers, plant fibres and bark cloths. Without such perspectives and expertise, many features and treasures of the collections will remain hidden, and their true value unknown. We have therefore founded the Sir Joseph Banks Scholarships to study the Economic Botany Collections and to:

• add to the non-botanical knowledge and understanding of them;

• assess their standing and relationship with other collections;

• contribute to their collection, curation and conservation;

• explore the contribution the Economic Botany Collections and similar collections can make to education and to the conservation of cultural and biological diversity, especially in developing countries.

Conditions

• The scholarships, each with a value of up to £1,100, are to cover costs (e.g. travel, accommodation) for dedicated research on the Economic Botany Collections.

• Applicants may come from a wide field of backgrounds and specialisms, and from any stage of their careers.

• Applicants must submit: their record of academic or disciplinary expertise (e.g. appointments, publications); the title of the proposed project; how the scholarship will benefit the Economic Botany Collections and the applicant's research; what the end product of the research will be; a breakdown costs. Projects are expected to exploit the full value of the scholarships. A report must be submitted within three months of the end of the project.

• Any publications ensuing in part or in toto from the scholarships should acknowledge the support of the scholarships and a copy should be sent to the Curator of the Economic Botany Collections.

Applications should be addressed to the Curator of the Centre for Economic Botany.

Scholarships have so far been awarded to:

Professor Elaine Joyal of the Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University. Professor Joyal's study is "Basketry ecology: a market and museum-based global survey".

Lorraine Rostant, Conservator, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, for interventive conservation of items made of a variety of plant fibres.

Catherine Lord, Professor, Department of Studio Art, University of California, Irvine, to study items from Dominica (and associated correspondence in Kew's Archives) for a publication called White settlers in the tropics.

Janette Gibson, Lecturer, Constructed Textiles, Middlesex University, and Alison Lister, Lecturer, Textile Conservation Centre, University of Southampton, to study the composition, construction and deterioration of textile artefacts in the EBC.

If you would like further information about the scholarships please contact:

The Curator
Centre for Economic Botany
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Richmond
Surrey TW9 3AE
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 8332 5771
Fax: +44 (0) 20 8332 5768
E-mail: ecbot@rbgkew.org.uk