Join our Good Problems Team to explore ways of making health research more open and inclusive through public engagement. 🧬

• 3–6 month contract, with the possibility to join the team permanently
• £28k – £40k pro rata
• Family-friendly and flexible working arrangements
• Great workspace, 5-minute walk from Old Street Underground

About us

Our Good Problems Team at Science Practice works with science and innovation funders to identify pressing global challenges and design programmes to act on them. We have designed over 40 innovation programmes including the £10M Longitude Prize and our clients include Wellcome, the Humanitarian Innovation Fund and Nesta.

We are a dedicated team of five with skills ranging from design and research to social entrepreneurship, development studies, programming, and radio. Our ambition is to maximise the impact of existing resources by helping funders make informed and transparent strategic decisions.

We work across a diverse range of domains including mental health, vaccines, urban transport, nutrition, sanitation and gender-based violence. Right now, we’re scoping opportunities for public engagement in biomedical and health science, designing sandpits around nutrition and diets, and designing a series of innovation challenges for the humanitarian sector.

The role

We are looking for someone with varied research experience to support us with the design of innovation funding programmes in the public engagement and health research space. On a recent similar project, we helped Wellcome’s Public Engagement team define public engagement funding priorities and develop programmes to tackle these.

This area interests us because we strongly believe that the direction health research takes should reflect the diverse needs, interests, and questions of the public who stand to benefit from it. All communities should be equally able to engage with, make use of, and further advocate for health research. That is why we are actively working with funders interested in ensuring that the resources invested in health research achieve their maximum potential.

For this role, we are open to interviewing both early-career and experienced researchers with a range of research experience including, but not limited to, exploratory research, action research, policy-oriented research, or human-centred research.

We are looking for someone available to start in early March 2020.

The role will involve:

• Conducting desk research and interviews with various stakeholders to better understand how public engagement can add value to health research.
• Synthesising research insights into compelling and engaging materials for senior decision-makers.
• Developing strategic recommendations for funders on how to respond to identified problems or gaps.
• Designing innovative funding programmes to improve public engagement with science and particularly health research. Testing proposed programmes through interviews and workshops.
• Facilitating workshops to gather feedback on priority problems or programme designs.

We’re looking for someone who:

• Has excellent research skills and enjoys exploring new topics through a range of research methods including desk research and interviewing a wide variety of actors such as scientists, policy-makers, industry representatives, and civil society.
• Has a good understanding of public engagement as well as the challenges associated with its inclusion in health research (this understanding can be gained through either academic and/or work experience).
• Writes well and communicates complex subject matter in simple, engaging language.
• Is comfortable with scientific subject matter (in particular, health research) and is familiar with the process of conducting scientific research.
• Can rapidly gain an understanding of new topics in unfamiliar domains and make judgements based on complex evidence.
• Is passionate about making health research more open and accessible to diverse communities.
• Is excited about engaging with domain experts, aligned organisations, and the general public through talks, workshops, events and social media.

Optional

• Is familiar with or has experience of working in the innovation funding sector.

Right to work

In order to apply for this job, you should have the right to work in the UK.

What we are offering

• A competitive salary and matched pension contributions.
• Family-friendly and flexible working arrangements.
• The opportunity to grow your skills and professional interests as part of a curious, supportive, and dedicated team.
• Weekly team catch-ups on Mondays to plan the week and on Fridays to reflect.
• Quarterly sessions to set team and personal goals.
• A smooth work setup built on Slack, Google Drive and Airtable.
• We share our studio with our sister company, Ctrl Group, who develop digital health products and Eclipse Experience, a human-centred design agency. We often run show’n’tells to share our work.
• A desk full of Swiss Cheese plants and a cupboard full of snacks. 🍏

How to apply

We value diversity at our company. This is core to our work as developing a robust understanding of problems requires a diversity of thought, experience and perspectives. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and ages.

To apply, please submit your details via this form.

The deadline for applications is 10am on Monday, 2 March 2020.

We will be in touch to arrange a convenient time for an interview by Tuesday, 3 March 2020.

We will start interviewing eligible applicants the w/c 2 March 2020.

We look forward to hearing from you! 🙌

No agencies, please.