Location

We anticipate this internship being undertaken remotely, although there will some opportunity to travel for meetings or fieldwork.

Project

The UK, and thus by extension Scotland, is not currently party to the 2003 UNESCO Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH).  As such, support for ICH across Scotland’s public bodies is currently piecemeal, although a national agencies working group is exploring ways to better align and co-ordinate public sector support.  This internship will feed into this work, by helping us to understand how we can better identify ICH at risk, and thus how we might help to better safeguard that living culture moving forward.  

ICH can be at risk for any number of reasons – UNESCO have identified 46 such reasons, including lack of transmission, decontextualization, loss of objects and systems, and negative attitudes.  However, as Scotland is not party to the Convention we lack any systematic approach to thinking about these risks in a Scottish context, or mechanisms for identifying risks to ICH as they emerge.  The project will therefore help us to understand the main risks facing ICH in Scotland, and explore how we might improve the way we identify risks to specific forms of ICH as they emerge.  To do so, it will draw on UNESCO’s ICH threats register, as well as practice currently underway across the UK and elsewhere, and interviews with key partners and ICH practitioners. 

While some of the work’s recommendations will focus primarily on ICH connected to the historic environment, we anticipate the internship taking a holistic approach to ICH and producing recommendations that will support the work of other partners in the national agencies group.  We are particularly keen to understand risks facing the ICH of migrant or other minority groups, especially where these groups face barriers to accessing state support. 

Outputs

We are looking for the internship to produce: 

• A short overview of the risks facing ICH (drawn from the material already produced by UNESCO), accompanied by a few Scottish case studies on living heritage that has fallen out of use or that might be under threat 
• A summary document highlighting existing mechanisms for assessing at-risk ICH, drawn from either across Scotland and the UK (e.g. Heritage Craft Association’s red list) or international practice (e.g. practice of UNESCO ICH signatories) 
• A short, written report exploring opportunities and challenges within Scotland for understanding at-risk ICH – what exists already, what structures or information channels would be needed – and particularly where and how this relates to the historic environment. 
• A series of recommendations for next steps, both for HES and the historic environment sector specifically, and more generally for Scotland’s national culture agencies 

Timescale

Start date (or must start by) – January 2024 but flexible 

End date (or must end by) - flexible 

Benefits to the Researcher

The internship will provide a chance to work alongside HES, other public sector partners, and third sector organisations to grapple with a practical and applied challenge. We hope the project will provide the intern not only with experience of applying research to practical challenges, but also leave them with direct contacts across Scotland’s public bodies, and first-hand experience of working to inform and develop cultural policy at national level.  

Our team has previous experience of hosting SGSAH interns, and our last intern secured a job with a partner organisation as a direct result of their placement with us.

Key Relationships

The researcher will be based in HES’s Strategy and Policy Team, and work directly with the Research Manager, Gaelic Language Policy Manager, and the Head of Strategy and Policy.  They will also work with our partners at Creative Scotland, Museums Galleries Scotland, Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland, and the Heritage Crafts Association through the course of their work, along with select ICH practitioners.   

Person Specification

Click here to apply

First published: 4 October 2023