Associate Research Advisor Permanent: 39 hours per week Salary range: £25,840 – £34,960 per annum, plus benefits Based in Westminster

The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) is looking for an exceptional candidate to join us as an Associate Advisor in our Research and Evaluation team. In this role you will work within the Core Research Team to design, conduct and evaluate randomised controlled trials across the public policy spectrum. In addition, we are keen to recruit candidates with an experience in web or application design.

The role will involve working with the Chief Scientist, the Head of Evaluation, and the Head of Data Science to develop BIT’s expertise in this area. You will be expected to substantially manage a series of randomised controlled trials over your first year, including evaluating work in education, in health, and in energy policy. The role will also work with BIT’s data science team to help apply new statistical methodologies to public policy problems.

The Behavioural Insights Team

The then Prime Minister created BIT in 2010 to apply behavioural science to public policy in the UK. In February 2014 we became a social purpose company, owned by the Cabinet Office, Nesta (an innovation charity) and our employees.

BIT works with governments around the world in almost every area of policy. Whilst the subject and output of our projects varies considerably, there are common threads: we try to understand the contexts in which people make decisions; we notice small details; we find out what has and hasn’t worked before; we come up with innovative ideas for solving policy problems and we measure everything we do as robustly as we can.

As well as displaying professional excellence, BIT selects staff on the basis of our company values: always prioritising social impact; empiricism and humility; fresh thinking, collaboration; and public service.

Roles and Responsibilities

Our Associate Advisors support work that will help shape UK government policy and influence key strategic policy and operational challenges more widely through the development of innovative interventions that are rigorous and robust.

In this research focused role you will work on the research elements of multiple projects simultaneously, working with a small project team of policymakers and researchers. This work will mainly be focused on our behavioural insights programme of work, developing trial protocols and trial interventions and tools. You will be expected to analyse large datasets, and to involve yourself in training and opportunities to develop new empirical expertise.

Essential

The Behavioural Insights Team brings people together with different skills sets. You must be able to demonstrate a balance of skills across those listed below, but we do not expect you to be exceptional in all areas.

• Experience in designing and implementing rigorous evaluations, including Randomised Controlled Trials, difference in differences, regression discontinuity, and propensity score matching, particularly applied to policymaking;
• Experience in using and analysing large data sets (such as administrative data) for the purposes of evaluation or predictive modelling;
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills (and will be able to translate academic work to non-academic audiences);
• A clear understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different evaluations methodologies, including those that you are not an expert in; and
• Experience using software packages for either quantitative analysis (e.g.STATA or R), at an expert or competitive level, and/or web design.

Desirable

Finally, it would be desirable if you have:

• A Masters or PhD in a relevant subject area (including, but not limited to behavioural science, public policy, economics, psychology, evaluation methods).

Date of posting: 8th September 2017 Close of Applications: 25th September 2017 at 9am BST Interviews and assessment tasks will take place: Early/ Mid October 2017

Please note:

• If you do not already hold the right to work in the UK and/or require sponsorship in order to continue working here, you should think carefully before applying. This is because we will be unable to sponsor you unless there is no other suitably qualified settled worker available to fill the role or your current immigration status means that the resident labour market test will not apply in your case.

To find out more about the organisation and the type of people who work in the team visit: http://www.behaviouralinsights.co.uk

The Behavioural Insights Team is committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and is determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable