Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Social and Sustainable Innovation

Unit: FBL

Salary: £36,333 to £38,474

Location: Milton Keynes

Reference: 20905

Terms: Fixed term contract for 2 years until 31 December 2025

Closing Date: 12^th June, 2023 - 12:00 noon

It is anticipated that a hybrid working pattern can be adopted for this role, where the successful candidate can work from home and/or the office. However, as this role is contractually aligned to our Milton Keynes office it is expected that some attendance in the office will be required when necessary and in response to business needs. We’d expect this to be approximately every 3 to 6 months as required.

Change your career, change lives

The Open University is the UK’s largest university, a world leader in flexible part-time education combining a mission to widen access to higher education with research excellence, transforming lives through education.

This role is a unique opportunity to join the Social and Sustainable Enterprise research cluster in The Open University Business School, Department Pulse to work on a new and exciting externally funded Horizon Europe project ENCASE.

The ENCASE project focuses on developing a European Network of Research Infrastructures for CO2 Transport and Injection. Our role in the project will be to develop and evaluate social innovation labs, processes and initiatives to integrate the research infrastructures in their local communities.

In this role, you will develop methodological protocols, co-design training to support research infrastructures to establish social innovation lab and co-creation activities and carry out comparative qualitative and quantitative research to explore if the processes worked (or not) and how.

The role

You will develop your skills in leading, managing and researching co-creation projects. You will assist the team in developing the social innovation lab and process in collaboration with the Scottish research infrastructure partner, contribute to the project planning and coordinate activities across project collaborators. You will bring a keen interest in supporting co-creation activities with environmental objectives and specific knowledge on evaluating if and how these processes work.  At all stages of the project, you will work closely with and receive support from experienced academics who have qualitative and/or quantitative research methods expertise.

Skills and experience

• Hold a PhD (or be close to completion) in Public Management, Management, Political Science, Economics, Sociology or related disciplines
• Willingness to travel to Scotland for fieldwork
• A strong record of research (such as publications published or publications in pipeline/under review) and/or knowledge exchange (such as organisation of event(s) for knowledge sharing or development of policy briefs) that is related to the position.

More information can be provided via a link to the Job Description.

If you would like to discuss the application or recruitment process before making an application, please contact Jennifer Reid at Resourcing Hub on 01908 655544 or Jennifer.Reid@open.ac.uk quoting the reference VRF 20905.

Francesca Calo (Francesca.Calo@open.ac.uk), the Principal Investigator of the ENCASE Project is happy to speak with potential applicants and answer questions.

What you get in return

We have a strong commitment to providing training and development in and beyond your current role. This includes thorough induction into the organisation and regular reviews of your training and development needs.

We also offer a great range of benefits that support our employees and their families for the long term. Staff Benefits include an attractive pension proposition and 33 days holiday per annum pro rata, plus Bank Holidays and Christmas closure days.