Student Assistant Globalise - Huygens Instituut - Amsterdam

You will work as a Student Assistant (0.4 fte) on GLOBALISE. This is a project that is developing an advanced digital infrastructure based on the extensive archives of the Dutch East India Company that will enable new research on the Company, the history of early modern Asia and the Cape, globalization and colonialism. You will principally create and curate information for the persons dataset in the project. This includes building a thesaurus and creating structured data on persons, in the early modern period in regions where the Dutch East India Company was active, from primary sources, secondary sources and existing datasets. You may also work on other relevant datasets created by the project and annotate and transcribe documents from the Dutch East India Company archives. The work is individually assigned but you will be part of a team that is managed by the 'Historical Contextualisation' team leader. It is desired that you are available to work on the joint project day.

What do you bring to the role?

You should be enrolled as a student in a (Res)Ma or MA programme in History or similar at a Dutch university. You will have knowledge of the history of the Dutch East India Company and/or early modern Asian history. Furthermore, you will have an eye for detail and experience working with large historical datasets. You should also be able to work in a careful and independent manner. It is an added advantage if you have relevant digital skills (e.g. knowledge of Python), affinity with subjects related to the project, such as colonial history, the history of slavery, intercultural exchange or early modern Asia. Finally, experience of reading early modern manuscripts and working with archives (preferably VOC) is also desirable.

Terms of employment
Depending on education and experience the minimum salary is 2.618 and the maximum salary is 2.846 gross per month for a full-time appointment (scale SA cao Nederlandse Universiteiten/KNAW). This is exclusive of 8% vacation allowance, 8.3% year-end bonus, travel allowance, internet allowance, home working allowance and pension accrual with ABP. The KNAW offers its staff an excellent package of secondary benefits. A package that meets the different needs of employees depending on their stage of life, lifestyle or career ambitions. For example, by working an extra two hours a week, it is possible to increase the number of days off from 29 to 41 days a year (with full-time employment). For a complete overview of the terms of employment, please refer to the web page: werken bij de KNAW.

About the Huygens Institute
The Huygens Institute aims to enrich, broaden, renew and make widely accessible the research on history and culture of the Netherlands. We do this by digitally opening up historical and literary data and texts from various collections and sources, connecting them and analysing them in innovative ways - across the centuries and beyond Europe's borders.

What do we offer?
GLOBALISE is a large and ambitious project. The team, consisting of young and enthusiastic historians, developers and computational linguists, is driven to enable new, inclusive world histories. Application of Natural Language Processing to historical texts and a focus on data ethics are central elements within the project.