Research Associate in Planning and Biodiversity

Job description:

Are you an experienced researcher, looking for an opportunity to be part of a major new project that assesses the biodiversity loss associated with the planning process, and improves outcomes for nature?

This role gives the exciting opportunity to join an interdisciplinary team, bringing together scholars from Urban Studies, Landscape, Biosciences and English at a leading school of Geography and Planning. Together, we will work on the ESRC-funded Planning and Biodiversity project, critically exploring the introduction of new biodiversity policy, and asking whether it is truly making a positive impact for nature - and, if not, what needs to change.

You will be passionate about producing world-leading research in this vital area of study, and dedicated to seeking real impact. Knowledge of biodiversity policy and the planning system are desirable, but we have resources to provide training for candidates who are less familiar with these areas but eager to learn. More significant are creative and critical thinking skills, and the ability to embrace a clear-sighted view of current trends in policy. You will have completed or be near to completing a PhD in planning, geography, urban studies, or a relevant field.

We will support you to produce play a pivotal and valuable role in social science data collection, analysis, and the production of research outputs, but we will also provide support for you to gain more interdisciplinary skills should you wish to do so. As a valued member of the team, you will work with a wider range of planning, ecology, and community partners to coproduce knowledge that will have a real impact on policy and practice.

We are committed to equality and diversity, and will consider hybrid and flexible working arrangements and to make reasonable accommodations where possible. The position offers the successful candidate a change to benefit from wider career development opportunities through the Urban Studies Early Career Researcher Network.

We are a globally recognised centre of education and research in planning and urban studies, being ranked as the top planning school in the country in the latest UK government Research Excellence Framework 2021. Over the last 60 years, we have cultivated a reputation for excellence, offering a comprehensive range of research-focused and professionally accredited planning and property programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Our success has been built on a tradition of collegiality and critical engagement at the interface of theory and policy/practice, coalescing around a concern with social and spatial justice. We are a vibrant community of academics, PhD students, research fellows and associates with a deeply embedded and shared commitment to advancing education and scholarship in planning and urban studies.

As a school we are well placed for the interdisciplinary approaches required for confronting urgent global issues. As well as being committed to dialogue across the range of the discipline, colleagues in the school play leading roles in the flagship University of Sheffield Institute for Sustainable Food, the Institute for Global Sustainable Development and the Sheffield Urban Institute.

We build teams of people from different heritages and lifestyles from across the world, whose talent and contributions complement each other to greatest effect. We believe diversity in all its forms delivers greater impact through research, teaching and student experience.

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