What will I learn on this module?
This professional placement module provides an immersive professional experience in preventive conservation within museums, galleries, or libraries. Through a four-day weekly placement over a period of four to six weeks, you will bridge the gap between academic theory and professional practice, developing essential skills for a career in heritage conservation:
Professional Practice & Operation: You will gain hands-on experience in the daily operations of heritage institutions, understanding administrative processes, management structures, and conservation and collections care staff responsibilities. You will participate in real-time activities that may include exhibition installation and de-installation, condition reporting and surveys, packing for transit, housekeeping, integrated pest management and environmental monitoring.
Technical & Strategic Skills: The placement will expose you to critical preventive conservation practices including risk assessment, emergency preparedness planning, and report and policy writing. You will learn to apply theoretical knowledge and frameworks from previous modules to real-world scenarios, developing practical problem-solving abilities.
Research & Impact: A key learning component involves co-developing a research project with your placement host that addresses genuine institutional needs and forms your assignment for the module. This collaborative approach ensures your academic work has tangible impact while developing research skills that often inform your dissertation. Risk assessment and guidance is provided for both you and your host by the university placement office that ensures you are fully insured for all placement activities and you are both fully briefed on the academic expectations for the module.
Professional Development: Through attending staff meetings, training sessions and working alongside experienced professionals, you will understand the scope and pace of preventive conservation work. This comprehensive exposure prepares you for the realities of professional practice while building valuable industry networks and potentially contributing to your personal research interests.
How will I learn on this module?
Your learning follows a student-led approach that emphasizes experiential practice and reflective engagement. This methodology bridges theory and practice through multiple interconnected learning activities:
Practical Immersion & Collaboration: Learning occurs primarily through hands-on work as a preventive conservator, engaging with real institutional challenges and collaborating with professional teams. You will develop critical judgment, practical skills, and communication abilities while planning, implementing, and managing preventive conservation strategies. Regular discussions with your module tutor, placement team members and colleagues facilitate knowledge exchange and professional insight.
Structured Reflection & Support: A mandatory reflective journal hosted on Blackboard Ultra provides structured reflection opportunities. You will document your work, analyse experiences, and raise queries. Your module tutor monitors your progress and poses developmental questions on your experience. This creates a continuous dialogue supporting your learning journey.
Peer Learning & Professional Networking: Discussion boards enable meaningful exchanges with fellow students about preventive conservation issues and comparative professional experience during the placement. These peer interactions, moderated by your tutor, develop essential networking skills crucial for professional practice while building a community of learning.
Research Integration: One day weekly is formally dedicated to your negotiated placement assignment, allowing deep engagement with your collaborative research project. This integration of academic critical inquiry with professional practice reinforces theoretical understanding through practical application.
Comprehensive Support System: The Student Placement Team provides additional support once your placement is secured and approved, while your module tutor remains available via email for ongoing guidance, and urgent enquires during your placement and providing timely feedback on your summative assignment.
Where students are unable to carry out a professional placement in person, an alternative in the form of an online live brief around the Northumbria University Collections can be offered.
How will I be supported academically on this module?
Academic support is provided through multiple structured channels to ensure your success throughout the placement experience:
Module Tutor Support: Your module tutor serves as your primary academic mentor, providing comprehensive guidance from placement approval through to final assessment. They will approve your negotiated assignment topic and monitor your electronic journal, offering written feedback where required, raising developmental questions, and addressing your queries. Written feedback from your summative assignment is provided within standard university timescales, maintaining academic standards and supporting your progression toward your final dissertation. Additional support is available via email for any urgent academic concerns that arise during your placement.
Reflective Journal: Your reflective journal is hosted on Blackboard Ultra and creates a dedicated space for your professional reflection and for academic dialogue. Your weekly entries on reflective practice allow you to document experiences, analyse learning, evaluate how theoretical principles apply to practice and receive targeted feedback from your tutor, ensuring continuous academic development throughout your placement.
Peer Academic Community: Moderated discussion boards facilitate academic discourse with fellow students on preventive conservation topics and collections care issues. Your module tutor monitors these discussions, intervening when appropriate to enhance learning while allowing you to develop professional networking skills essential for academic and career advancement.
Dedicated Research Time: During your placement, one day per week is formally dedicated for you to carry out your collaborative assignment work, ensuring adequate time for academic research and analysis while maintaining professional placement commitments.
Institutional Support Framework: The Student Placement Office provides full administrative support once your placement is secured and approved, working alongside your module tutor to ensure appropriate learning conditions. All placements are fully risk assessed, and you will be fully insured by the university.
What will I be expected to read on this module?
All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)
What will I be expected to achieve?
Knowledge & Understanding:
1. Further understand the history, materials, creation, deterioration, vulnerability and physical and chemical characteristics of items/collections of movable cultural heritage to their care, preventive conservation and interpretation in a professional context.
2. Understand, develop and implement appropriate strategies, policies and procedures for the care and preventive conservation of items/collections of movable cultural heritage in a professional context.
3. Demonstrate how theoretical principles can be applied to professional practice by co-developing a research assignment with a placement host.
Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
4. Develop professional skills relevant to the heritage profession and demonstrate conversant with legislation or ethics policies, both local and international, governing the care and preventive conservation of items/collections of movable cultural heritage.
5. Develop critical thinking and reflective practice while actively participating in a professional workplace scenario, either in person, or online.
6. Develop project management skills, working
together with the placement host to draw upon and synthesise a wide range of knowledge and understanding to develop and implement appropriate strategies for the care and preventive conservation of items/collections of movable cultural heritage.
Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
7. Demonstrate enthusiasm, curiosity, integrity, ethical and professional awareness in all aspects of work, while developing strong communication and team working skills.
8. Further develop cultural competencies by working with cultural heritage objects from global cultures in collections, understanding their context in addition to their practical preservation needs.
How will I be assessed?
Formative:
Regular participation in the online Module Discussion Board, moderated by the Module Tutor.
Summative:
4000 word written research report co-developed with placement host (80% of the module mark)
1000 word Reflective Journal kept throughout your placement experience (20% of the module mark)
Module abstract
This transformative placement module where you'll work alongside industry experts in museums, galleries, libraries, or heritage institutions of your choice gives you the opportunity to take the theoretical principles you’ve learned over the last three modules and apply them in a professional practice environment. This research-rich learning opportunity challenges you to co-develop an impactful project with your host institution, creating tangible benefits for your learning, the organization and the wider profession.
With comprehensive support from your module tutor and the University Placement Office, you'll gain invaluable real-world experience over a four to six -week professional immersion in a heritage institution (or online live brief). The module consistently achieves high student satisfaction rates, reflecting its success in bridging academic theory with professional practice through meaningful, hands-on engagement. Your collaborative research project will demonstrate how academic inquiry can address genuine institutional needs, while your reflective journal and tutor support ensures your development throughout the placement. You will also gain key employability skills including:
An understanding of professional preventive conservation techniques and methodologies
Risk assessment and emergency preparedness planning
Collections care and documentation systems
Project management and collaborative research abilities
Communication and teamwork in professional heritage environments
Critical analysis and problem-solving in real-world contexts
Industry networking and professional relationship building
This module provides the practical foundation essential to progress into your dissertation and for launching your career in heritage conservation.
