Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities

Host organisation: Business Archives Council of Scotland

Project title: Building Creative Resilience: Preserving Heritage, Strengthening Futures

Project description

Building Creative Resilience aims to improve the resilience of record keeping practices within Scotland’s Creative Industries. We know these organisations are vulnerable to funding changes and are concerned that their records are at risk. This project seeks to develop useful resources for creative industry practitioners and organisations to help them realise the value of their heritage and ensure it is safeguarded for future use.

Outputs

Through collaboration between the creative industries and the archives sector the intern will deliver:

  • A record-keeping toolkit for the creative industries focused on one or two sectors (to be decided by intern and host) that addresses retention, digital record-keeping, and intellectual property and copyright.
  • An engagement event for the heritage sector to work in partnership with the creative industry sector, built upon a shared understanding of the values creative practitioners and organisations place upon the records of their business.
  • Improved awareness of the holdings of creative industry archives held across the archive and heritage sector and in private organisations.
  • Case studies of good practice in the preservation and use of creative industry archives.

Through the delivery of these core project outputs, the partners will enable the building of a network of record creators and custodians and seed the foundation of further support for the archives of Scotland’s creative industries.

In person/remote/hybrid

Hybrid.

This internship will involve working in the offices of the Ballast Trust which is the administrative home of the Business Archives Council of Scotland where our Convenor is based and also Scotland's business archives surveying officer. The intern will be able to work from home when required and some travel may be necessary for site visits. Travel expenses will be fully covered.

Benefits to the researcher

This project will develop skills around working across different sectors and disciplines as it focuses on archival and record-keeping practices and how they can work for creative industries.

The Creative Industries is broad and varied and the researcher will have flexibility to focus their work on one or two sub-sectors eg film, theatre, music or visual arts amongst many others.

Key relationships

Governance and delivery of the internship will be overseen on a daily basis by Kiara King on behalf of BACS who will supervise intern recruited to the project. Regular meetings/check-ins (weekly or fortnightly) will take place with postholders to discuss any upcoming challenges or difficulties within the project and develop solutions where necessary.

A wider stakeholders group will be assembled once the particular focus of creative industries has been agreed between the intern and host. It will include representatives from archives and heritage organisations with collecting strengths that relate to that particular part of the creative industries eg Theatre - University of Glasgow Archives & Special Collections or Film - NLS Moving Image Archive. Other members will include creative industry practioners and other researchers and academics.

The intern will be engaging with practitioners from the creative industries and custodians of relevant archive and heritage collections to help shape the project and its outputs.

Subject areas

This opportunity would be relevant to the following subject areas:

Creative Arts and Design; Cultural and Museum Studies; History; Media, Comms, Film & TV.

Person specification

A1. Knowledge Base
  • Essential: Subject knowledge; Information seeking; Information literacy and management. 
  • Desirable: Research methods – theoretical knowledge; Research methods – Practical application. 
A2. Cognitive Abilities
  • Essential: Evaluating.
A3. Creativity
  • Essential: Inquiring minds; Intellectual insight.
B1. Personal qualities
  • Essential: Enthusiasm; Self-confidence; Responsibility.
  • Desirable: Perseverance. 
B2. Self management
  • Essential: Preparation and prioritisation; Time management; Responsiveness to change.
B3. Professional & career development
  • Essential: Responsiveness to opportunities; Networking.
C1. Professional conduct
  • Desirable: IPR and copyright. 
C2. Research management
  • Essential: Project planning and delivery.
D1. Working with others
  • Essential: Team working; Collaboration.
D2. Communication & dissemination
  • Essential: Communication methods.
D3. Engagement & impact
  • Desirable: Public Engagement; Society and culture.

First published: 28 September 2026

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