Research Assistant (Nuffield Foundation project)

About the Blavatnik School of Government

Our vision is of a world better led, a world better served and a world better governed. We are a global school committed to improving the quality of government and public policymaking worldwide, through three routes: teaching current and future leaders; generating research with impact; and engaging with governments and practitioners.

What we offer

The School is a collaborative, friendly, and dynamic department based in an award-winning building in Oxford. We host regular events and talks with well-known guest speakers – all of which are open to staff. On the social side, we have regular coffee/cake mornings for staff, a family-friendly Halloween event, and Christmas and summer parties.

As an employer, we genuinely care about our employees’ wellbeing and this is reflected in the range of benefits that we offer including:

• An excellent contributory pension scheme
• 38 days’ annual leave
• Family leave schemes and a comprehensive range of childcare services
• Cycle loan scheme and discounted bus travel and Season Ticket travel loans
• Membership to a variety of social and sports clubs
• Opportunities for remote working.

About the role

The Blavatnik School of Government is seeking to appoint a part-time Research Assistant to support a Nuffield Foundation funded project on the outsourcing of adult and children’s social care in England – evaluating the impact of marketisation, for-profit provision, and privatisation of social care services, producing research on what it means for service users’ outcomes, quality of care, and accessibility of care.

The role involves creating a novel data resource of harmonised publicly available data on local authorities and adult and children’s social care providers in England.

You will provide support with data cleaning, analysis and visualisation, and other project-related tasks. You will also contribute to the design of research materials and make arrangement for data gathering, contribute to the writing and formatting of research papers and project deliverables, as well as share research findings with colleagues and research groups.

This is role is part-time at 0.3 FTE (11.25 hours per week), and fixed-term until 31 January 2027.

About you

You will hold a first degree in a relevant subject, together with some relevant experience, and be working toward a social sciences doctorate. You will have experience with quantitative methods and using a statistical software such as R or Stata, and the ability to manage your own research and administrative activities. 

Application process

You will be required to upload your CV, a supporting statement and the details of two referees as part of your online application.

The closing date for applications is 12:00 noon on Friday 4 October 2024.

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