The latest edition of The National Archives’ research newsletter will be out on Monday. We’ve decided to give you a sneak preview by publishing one of the articles for today’s blog!
Victoria Lain, Research and Grants Advisor
At the beginning of September 2012 the Research Team at The National Archives grew exponentially from two people to three! Victoria Lain has joined us as the new Research and Grants Advisor. I spoke to Victoria about her thoughts on her new role.
What were you doing before you joined the Research Team?
Prior to this position I worked for four years at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History as head of the Teaching American History Grant Department. I worked with school districts across the United States to apply for federally funded Teaching American History Grants from the Department of Education. We would then use the funds from these grants to organise workshops with historians and teachers from the school districts to enable them to improve their content knowledge and, hopefully, pass that along to their students.
Before that, I worked for a financial/publishing company to organise events. These were mostly for investors and financial managers and I got a lot of experience in how to arrange a successful conference. The fact that they took place in Grand Cayman, Bermuda and California didn’t hurt either!
What attracted you to your new role?
The idea of working in the UK grants world was very attractive, as I am mostly familiar with the US landscape for funding, so it seemed like a great opportunity to broaden my own knowledge. The National Archives also has such gravitas, and that was appealing in itself. The broad reach of the role meant that the job would require working with lots of different people, scholars, and organisations which would be a change for me, and something I look forward to.