Research Associate

Role Description

The Stockholm Environment Institute at York, within the Department of Environment and Geography, is looking to recruit a Research Associate to join a new, £1m UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund project, “Transforming Political Capabilities for Equitable Resilience”. This exciting project will focus on urban communities in Nepal and Thailand, exploring how narratives of risk and resilience sustain inequality in access to services, and how the complexity of urban systems creates risk of failures in service provision with uneven impacts on residents.

By working alongside marginalised urban communities and their representatives, we plan for our project to have two forms of direct impact. First, we will support the actors we work with to expand their skills and relationships (including with influential stakeholders) and to co-produce new knowledge of urban resilience. Second, we expect through this that they will achieve a change in standing in relation to formal authority, such that they have increased leverage in resilience planning. Furthermore, by providing conceptual frameworks and methods we will support international development partners to design and deliver programmes that meet the needs of urban people in Nepal, Thailand and across the Global South. Together, these outputs will contribute towards a rethinking of the nature of urban vulnerability and the processes required for resilience planning.

We are looking for a talented and motivated researcher to work in close collaboration with our partners in Nepal and Thailand to support the production of both high-quality research outputs and new tools and methods. Researchers who can demonstrate how their experience, knowledge and skills could play a central role in this action-research project are encouraged to apply.

Role

• We are looking for a new Research Associate to work under the supervision of Dr Jonathan Ensor (Stockholm Environment Institute) and Dr Richard Friend (Department of Environment and Geography).
• The post holder will be expected to conduct research in relation to systems resilience and disaster risk reduction, working in collaboration with the UK investigators and project partners in Nepal and Thailand.
• The post holder will bring knowledge of urban studies, science and technology studies, systems and complexity thinking, and/or governance and participatory planning, enabling them to contribute to the design and delivery of fieldwork and analysis of data, leading to the production of high-quality research publications.Skills, Experience & Qualification needed

Skills, Experience and Qualifications needed

• PhD in human geography, development studies or allied discipline, or equivalent experience
• Knowledge of a range of qualitative and participatory research techniques and methodologies
• Knowledge and experience of action research and/or transdisciplinary approaches
• Experience of writing-up research work for publication in high profile journals and ability to engage in public dissemination
• Ability to develop research objectives and projects for own and joint research, with the assistance of a mentor if required
• Experience of carrying out both independent and collaborative research
• Experience of undertaking research in a developing country context, ideally in Nepal or Thailand

This post is available on a fixed term basis until 31 October 2022.

Interview date: likely to be 17 January 2020

For informal enquiries: please contact Dr Jonathan Ensor on jon.ensor@york.ac.uk

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