Research Associate - Science of Science

Job reference: HUM-028032
Salary: £37,174 - £45,413 per annum, dependent on relevant experience
Faculty/Organisational unit: Humanities
Location: Oxford Road
Employment type: Fixed Term
Division/Team: Mcr Institute of Innovation Research
Hours per week: Full time (1 FTE)
Closing date (DD/MM/YYYY): 19/03/2025
Contract duration: Until 31/12/2025
School/Directorate: Alliance Manchester Business School

We seek to appoint a Research Associate in the Science of Science to work on the UK-DOCTRACK project. The researcher will be housed at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, Alliance Manchester Business School, under the supervision of Prof. Cornelia Lawson and Dr Xin Deng.

The Research Associate will undertake research as part of a team project that is creating a longitudinal database of UK PhD graduates that allows identifying their direct and indirect contribution to invention. The project is sponsored by the European Patent Office (EPO) and part of the wider DOCTRACK, led by Catalina Martinez (CSIC, Spain), a European wide effort to investigate the performances of PhDs and to create a new open European PhD database.

The project’s goal is investigate barriers to innovation along the pipeline, including gender biases, and to contribute insights to understand the constraints of economic growth in the UK. The project also seeks to understand career trajectories of doctoral graduates and the role of supervisors and new technologies in shaping these trajectories.

This 12 month position will support a scholar who seeks to develop leading-edge research that probes these questions using large-scale advanced quantitative bibliometrics, patent analytics, and modelling. The researcher will also have the opportunity to suggest their own research ideas.

The successful candidate will have a commitment to research and publication and to methodological advancement. We welcome applicants from doctoral graduates, early career researchers, and others for whom this one-year position is suitable. The position is open to applicants from diverse educational backgrounds, including management, economics, social science, information science, and computer science. Applicants who combine disciplines, for example sciences or engineering at the undergraduate level with social sciences at the doctoral level are encouraged to consider this opportunity. We will also consider candidates with other combinations of qualifications. However, applicants should have a strong record in quantitative methodological research skills, desirably including experience with bibliometric, patent or other big data sets, text mining, large language models, machine learning, and experience or an interest in applications to science.

The Manchester Institute of Innovation Research is a world leading centre for the study of science and innovation policy and management. Our 45 members of staff and 30 doctoral students build on more than five decades of interdisciplinary science, technology and innovation studies in Manchester. Our research, teaching and engagement activities are based upon a guiding principle of excellence, both in terms of academic rigour and societal relevance. The successful candidate will be associated with the Institute’s Emerging Technologies and Governance and its Science, Technology and Innovation Policy research themes.

In the Additional Information section of the application form, please include discussion of your capabilities, experience including required and desirable methodological skills, interests related to the science of science, science practices, and your own proposed research theme.

Our University is positive about flexible working – you can find out more here

Enquiries about the vacancy, shortlisting and interviews:

Name: Prof. Cornelia Lawson and Dr Xin Deng

Email: cornelia.lawson@manchester.ac.uk and xin.deng@manchester.ac.uk

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