Research Fellow

Location: Stirling Campus

The Post

We are looking for a skilled and enthusiastic social scientist to join an international ESRC-funded project Balancing Trust and Accountability: Charities, Regulators, and Society. The project will use a mixed-methods approach, involving both secondary social survey data and longitudinal focus groups with regulators, charities, funders, policy makers and the general public to explore the perceptions and determinants of trust around the charitable sector. With international partners in the USA, Canada and Switzerland, the project will conduct a comparative international study across different contexts.

The project
As societies, we struggle to find the balance between encouraging a vibrant democracy and widening fractures between groups and opinions. Civil society plays a very large role in representing such differing opinions and needs, particularly operating charities and foundations. However, public trust in charities has decreased over recent years in many countries, as has public opinion of government. Meanwhile, regulation and the press for accountability in the charitable sector is increasing. But why are public-serving organizations trusted so little?

This project utilizes four unique country contexts (Canada, the U.K., Switzerland, and the U.S.) to map and understand cross-sector opinions related to trust and accountability. Though these four countries have much in common (including the separation of operating charities and foundations into independent tax-exempt forms), there is significant variation in regulatory approach, interpersonal trust, and popular sentiment toward public-serving institutions. This effort focuses on the perceptions of four audiences toward each other: operating charities, foundations, charity regulators, and the public.

The Role
We are recruiting for a Grade 7 post for up to 30 months. The duties will focus on the research and fieldwork within the UK. This includes literature review, ethical approval, methods design, delivery of a programme of focus groups (both in-person and online), analysis of the qualitative data, and contribution to the academic and practice outputs from the project.

The post holder will work under the supervision of Professor Alasdair Rutherford in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Stirling. It will also involve collaboration with investigators at the University of Texas at Dallas (USA); Carleton University (Canada) and the University of Basel (Switzerland).

There will be some opportunity for international travel in this role, for conferences and visiting a partner institution.

Description of Duties

• Literature search, country profile, and review drafting
• Collaborating in design of the methods and research instruments
• Delivery of the program of focus groups (both in-person and online)
• Analysis of the qualitative data

Essential Criteria

• PhD in social science or other relevant discipline (or near completion), or equivalent experience
• Training in qualitative research methods
• Experience of conducting research interviews or focus groups
• Interest in the third sector, regulation, and/or trust & accountability

For further information, including a full description of duties, essential criteria and details on how to apply, please see Vacancy details | University of Stirling

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