Position Details

College of Life and Environmental Sciences

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £34,980 to £44,263 with potential progression once in post to £46,974

Grade: 7

Full Time, Fixed Term contract up to September 2026 

Closing date: 16th May 2024 

Background

We are seeking a skilled social scientist with an aptitude for working in multi-disciplinary teams to generate crucial social science insights through engagement with research, policy and citizen communities, to inform and generate impactful research in relation to the important and emerging intersections between the societal challenges of Net Zero, Air Quality, and Health.

You will be a pivotal member of the Wellcome-funded project, WM-Net Zero, undertaking social science research and knowledge exchange to generate valuable insights to ensure the project’s interdisciplinary research programme is of value to a wide range of local, regional and national stakeholders and communities. Under the guidance of Dr. Louise Reardon,  Dr. Rosie Day and Dr. Suzanne Bartington, you will work closely with our key partners to ensure that our research is relevant to communities, beneficial to our stakeholders and has the potential to inform and influence relevant strategies, decision-making, and activities. Existing expertise within the team includes governance and public policy, public health, regulation, human geography, participatory methodologies, greenhouse gas emissions and air quality measurement, monitoring and modelling, and health economics. The fellow will complement these strengths with a social science focus, translating analysis and insights across these disciplines for societal impact. 

Key Responsibilities:

• Conduct social science research in response to project needs, for example stakeholder and policy mapping, document analysis, interviews and focus groups, and analysis of outputs of community engagement activities. 
• Stakeholder engagement: maintain and develop relationships with existing and new stakeholders, working closely with them to understand their needs and objectives
• Community engagement: contribute to activities to engage and involve wider communities, and design evaluations of such activities.
• Translate and communicate WM-Air research into easily accessible policy-relevant outputs, including slide decks, blogs, and policy briefs to a wide range of stakeholders. 
• Identify opportunities to utilise our ongoing research in response to emerging and changing local, regional and national policy agendas in relation to Net Zero, air quality, and health. Lead on activities that help to deliver and evaluate this impact. 

Background about WM-Net Zero:  WM-Net Zero - “A Health-centred Systems Approach towards Net-Zero: Transforming regional climate mitigation policies” is funded by Wellcome Trust and co-lead by Professor Zongbo Shi and Dr. Suzanne Bartington. WM-Net Zero is a transdisciplinary collaboration network involving 25 investigators and stakeholders, 11 researchers and a project manager. The overall aim of WM-Net Zero is to transform regional Net-Zero policy solutions by adopting a health-centred systems approach. Working towards this aim, WM-Net Zero brings together scientists from a range of disciplines (including social science, climate, air quality, health and economics) from the Universities of Birmingham, Surrey, and York, and stakeholders from West Midlands Combined Authority,  Defra, Birmingham City Council,  Clean Air Fund, Sandwell  Metropolitan Borough Council, Coventry City Council, Solihull Council, Dudley Council, Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants, and WSP in the UK to develop new tools and science understanding. 

Role Summary

Working within the scope of the objectives and direction determined by the WM-Net Zero Project Board, the Social Science Research Fellow will be responsible for providing social science data collection and analysis for a multi-disciplinary team. Engaging with stakeholders and communities to identify opportunities to generate regional impact through the WM Net-Zero portfolio of research at the intersection of Net Zero, air quality and health related policy agendas.

Main Duties

The Research Fellow in Social Science will play a pivotal role in generating cross-disciplinary knowledge to underpin WM-Net-Zero’s aim of creating impactful research in relation to Net-Zero, air quality and health agendas. Your work will be instrumental in informing and shaping strategies, decision-making and activities that are central to our mission.

Specific duties/responsibilities include:

• Designing and conducting mainly qualitative social science data collection in response to project needs, with a range of stakeholders, communities. For example utilising interviews, focus groups, workshops, stakeholder mapping, and document collation methodologies 
• Designing and conducting appropriate analysis of mainly qualitative data as required, which may include analysis of policy documents, relevant legislation, interviews, workshops, and the outputs of community engagement events. Drawing on analytical frameworks from the social sciences, including policy studies and human geography. 
• Engaging with the multi-disciplinary research team towards the inclusion of social science insights into modelling and monitoring work, to generate relevant new interdisciplinary knowledge to meet project objectives. 
• Supporting the writing and dissemination of project outputs for a range of audiences including academic and policy.
• Working closely with WM-Net Zero project team to develop and deliver knowledge exchange opportunities. 
• Working closely with external project partners to understand their needs and work to identify, prioritise and lead mutually-beneficial collaborative activities that fall within the remit of WM-Net Zero, in order to deliver impact and maximise project output. 
• In consultation with the principal investigators and/or strand leads as appropriate, deciding on the most appropriate way of undertaking specified activities.
• Disseminating and translating research knowledge in a way that external stakeholders, policy makers and general public can understand.
• Preparing reports, publications, and other dissemination materials as required.
• Presenting research findings, analysis and contribution to understanding of project outputs among national and international audiences.
• Dealing with problems that may affect the achievement of objectives and deadlines
• Undertaking management/administration arising from the project

The responsibilities may also include some but not all of the responsibilities outlined below:

• Contributing to writing bids for research funding
• Contributing to Departmental/School research-related activities and research-related administration
• Providing guidance, as required, to support staff and any students who may be assisting with the project

Person Specification

Essential

• Educated to Degree level with a PhD (or one close to completion) in a relevant social science discipline such as political science, human geography, sociology, or equivalent relevant professional experience 
• Experience of using qualitative methods in research, including conducting documentary analysis, and conducting and analysing interviews, focus groups, ideally in an area related to climate, air quality, health or public policy
• Experience of applying analytical frameworks, theories and concepts from the social sciences to understand barriers and enablers of social change (broadly conceived) 
• Excellent communication skills, including writing in an accessible way for various non-specialist audiences
• The ability to communicate complex information to diverse audiences
• Ability to work independently as well as within a multidisciplinary team
• Ability to manage own time and prioritise to meet deadlines, and to co-ordinate own work with others to avoid conflict or duplication of effort.
• Ability to assess resource requirements and use resources effectively (including people, time, money and equipment).
• Understanding of and ability to contribute to broader management/administration processes
• Ability to contribute to the planning and organising of the research programme 
• Ability to take initiative and to coordinate own work with others 
• An ability to disseminate the project deliverables at meetings, conferences and through reports and publications.

Desirable

• Experience of engaging with or conducting research with policy stakeholders, such as local government 
• Experience of conducting workshops and engagement events with communities and wider public, and processing the outputs of these. 
• Ability to design and analyse questionnaire surveys
• Experience of working successfully in multi-disciplinary teams, and / or engaging with climate, air quality or related models
• Experience in publishing high quality papers in peer-reviewed journals
• Practical experience of working in large multidisciplinary research teams 

Informal enquiries to Rosie Day, email: r.j.day@bham.ac.uk 

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