Vacancies on the Council

This page gives details of any current vacancies on the BSECS Council. Vacancies are normally advertised in the autumn of the year and appointments are made or elections held in time for the Society’s AGM, which happens during the Annual Conference in January. Occasionally, vacancies may arise during the year if people step down from the Council.

Those seeking nomination to the BSECS Council should be members in good standing. The roles are voluntary, but we do pay travel and other relevant expenses.

The normal procedure is for people to nominate themselves for a position on the Council. You may nominate someone else but it is probably a good idea to ask them first! The Society will then appoint one of the nominated persons (for appointed roles) or hold an election (for elected roles). For more information about our elections and appointments procedure, please read our constitution.

For queries about vacancies, nominations, appointments, and elections, please contact the BSECS secretary: secretary@bsecs.org.uk

Current Vacancies:

Nominations for Two Posts on the BSECS Council  

The BSECS Executive Committee invites nominations (and self-nominations) for two roles, to commence in February 2026.

Communications Officer (one of two, to work alongside Dr Sarah Fox)

The Communications Officers of BSECS are an integral part of the society as they are in charge of making sure our members and social media followers are up to date on the latest in scholarship, available opportunities for funding, and eighteenth-century studies events. Responsibilities include managing the BSECS website, social media accounts for both BSECS and JECS (Twitter, Facebook), and the society email. The Comms Officers will also be involved in the redesign of the BSECS website with the aim to improve the ways the website can serve as a resource for members through greater accessibility, organisation, and content. This position requires organisation, good time management, attention to detail, and public writing skills. A working knowledge of social media, WordPress (or other platform), and mailing lists will be useful as well.

Postgraduate Representative (one of three, to work alongside Dr Emma Pearce and Dr Rachel Bynoth.

The Postgraduate Representative’s main role is to represent the views of the postgrad/ECR membership at the Council and on the relevant committees. They also organise events aimed at postgrads and ECRs, which usually take the form of an annual summer conference and have recently included an online seminar series. They may also run a mentoring scheme at the January conference. The Reps are hoping to expand PG/ECR activity over the next couple of years and introduce new initiatives such as an online lightning talk series, a PGR/ECR Special Issue of the Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies, and a series of PGR/ECR online peer-mentoring sessions.

Both posts are for a standard tenure of three years. They are voluntary but the Society pays for all associated travel and accommodation expenses.

Nominees should submit a short statement outlining their experience, their current academic status/affiliation (if applicable), and expressing their interest in the role to the Secretary (secretary@bsecs.org.uk) by 14 January 2026.

The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies seeks to create and support a diverse and inclusive community of researchers and scholars from all sections of society and warmly encourages applications to council posts from members of under-represented groups. Our Equality and Diversity statement is available here: https://www.bsecs.org.uk/the-society/equality-and-diversity/.

For more information, please contact secretary@bsecs.org.uk.