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DEPARTMENT OF ZOOLOGY

Job description and selection criteria

Job title / Post-doctoral Research Associate in Intervention Design and Evaluation
Division / MPLS
Department / Zoology and Oxford Internet Institute
Location / New Radcliffe House, Oxford
Grade and salary / Grade 7.1 – 7.3, £31,076 - £32,958 per annum
Hours / Full Time
Contract type / Fixed term for 2 years
Reporting to / Professor E.J. Milner-Gulland & Dr Joss Wright
Vacancy reference / 128729
Additional information

Introduction

The University

The University of Oxford is a complex and stimulating organisation, which enjoys an international reputation as a world-class centre of excellence in research and teaching. It employs over 11,000 staff and has a student population of over 22,000.

Our annual income in 2013/14 was £1,174.4m. Oxford is one of Europe's most innovative and entrepreneurial universities: income from external research contracts exceeds £478.3m p.a., and more than 80 spin-off companies have been created.

Oxford is a collegiate university, consisting of the central University and colleges. The central University is composed of academic departments and research centres, administrative departments, libraries and museums. There is a highly devolved operational structure, which is split across four academic divisions, Academic Services and University Collections and University Administrative Services. For further information, please see:

www.ox.ac.uk/staff/about_the_university/new_to_the_university/structure_of_university.

For more information please visit http://www.ox.ac.uk/about

About the Mathematical, Physical, and Life Sciences Division

The Mathematical, Physical, and Life Sciences Division (MPLS) is one of the four academic divisions within the University, (that is, Humanities Division, Social Sciences Division, Mathematical, Physical, and Life Sciences Division, Medical Sciences Division). It comprises ten academic departments: Chemistry, Computing Laboratory, Earth Sciences, Engineering Sciences, Materials, the Mathematical Institute, Physics, Plant Sciences, Statistics, Zoology. The MPLS Division also encompasses the Begbroke Science Park, the Life Sciences Interface Doctoral Training Centre, and the Oxford e-Research Centre. The constituent units of the Division enjoy an international reputation for excellence in the mathematical, physical, and life sciences, as well as in interdisciplinary areas, particularly at the interface with the medical and environmental sciences.

Each division has its own academic Head of Division and a divisional secretariat, led by the Divisional Secretary. Each division is responsible for academic oversight of the teaching and research of its various departments and faculties, for strategic and operational planning, and for personnel and resource management. Much of this is undertaken by the divisional board and its principal committees.

Oxford is widely recognised as one of the world's leading science universities and was ranked 2nd in the world (and 1st in Europe) in the 2012 Times Higher Education University rankings. In the 2008 UK Research Assessment Exercise over 70% of research activity in MPLS was judged to be world-leading (4*) or internationally excellent (3*).

The Head of the Mathematical, Physical, and Life Sciences Division is Professor Alex Halliday, and the Divisional Secretary is Dr Saira Shaikh. The Divisional Office for Mathematical, Physical, and Life Sciences is based at 9 Parks Road, in the heart of the science area.

For more information please visit www.mpls.ox.ac.uk

Social Sciences Division

The Oxford Internet Institute is a department within the Social Sciences Division, one of four academic Divisions in the University, each with considerable devolved budgetary and financial authority, and responsibility for providing a broad strategic focus across its constituent disciplines.

The Social Sciences Division represents the largest grouping of social sciences in the UK. It is home to a number of outstanding departments and to the internationally ranked Law Faculty; all are committed to research to develop a greater understanding of all aspects of society, from the impact of political, legal and economic systems on social and economic welfare to human rights and security. That research is disseminated through innovative graduate programmes and enhances undergraduate courses.

For more information please visit http://www.socsci.ox.ac.uk/

The Departments

The Department of Zoology (www.zoo.ox.ac.uk/) is recognised internationally for its research on ecological and evolutionary biology. This research spans all levels from molecules to ecosystems, and tackles fundamental problems in disease biology, evolutionary mechanisms, conservation biology, biodiversity, evolutionary developmental biology and animal behaviour. The Department of Zoology recently celebrated its 150th anniversary, and although it maintains its historic name its research programmes no longer focus solely on animals, but have expanded to cover animals, plants, bacteria, viruses and ecosystems. This diversity is echoed in teaching: the Department of Zoology and Department of Plant Sciences jointly deliver a broad-ranging and highly regarded undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences. Within its broad research portfolio, the Department incorporates several research institutes: the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology (EGI), the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), the Biodiversity Institute (BIO) and the Institute for Emerging Infections.

The Department of Zoology currently has approximately 70 academic staff and senior research fellows. It also houses a very large and interactive group of post docs (~100) and graduate students (~100). The main Department is located in the Tinbergen Building in the University’s Science Area. The Department also runs the John Krebs Field Station in Wytham Woods and the Recanati-Kaplan Centre in Tubney which houses WildCRU. Linked to the Tinbergen Building is the multi-disciplinary Peter Medawar Building for Pathogen Research with high-grade containment facilities. The Department is unusual in having about the same number of independently funded Research Fellows as the number of Faculty. External research income to the Department is derived from over 50 different funding agencies, with the principal funders being the European Research Council, the Royal Society, the Wellcome Trust, NERC and BBSRC. Recent success with the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) is particularly notable; the Department currently holds ten ERC grants: six Advanced Investigator awards and four Starter Investigator awards. In 2010 the Department was given an Athena Swan Silver award in recognition of its success at promoting the careers of women (http://www.zoo.ox.ac.uk/athena_swan).

For more information about the department, please visit the web site http://www.zoo.ox.ac.uk

The Oxford Internet Institute (OII)

The Oxford Internet Institute has expanded rapidly since its founding in 2001 to become a world-leading centre for the multidisciplinary study of the Internet and society, with activities focusing on research, post-graduate teaching and policy-making and practice.

The OII aims to bring about a greater understanding of the various social factors that are shaping the Internet and their implications for society. Central to this vision is a view of the Internet as a phenomenon that goes far beyond its technical capabilities to encompass all the people, services, information, and technologies that are intertwined in this 'network of networks'. Excellence in research underpins the Institute's collaborative and teaching activities. Wide-ranging collaborative relationships with experts from academia, government, business, and industry in the UK and around the world also play a central role in its strategic drive.

The OII’s research strategy has targeted areas critical to the public interest, where the design and use of the Internet and related technologies are likely to contribute to a substantial restructuring of social practice and institutional arrangements. Having developed critical mass in these areas, the OII’s strategy for the next five years is geared towards deepening and extending the range of grant-funded research around each theme and disseminating the outputs in high-quality journals, while ensuring that research helps inform and shape policy and practice.

Research at the OII focuses on 8 research clusters:

·  Connectivity, Inclusion & Inequality: understanding the shifts in the power dynamics caused by information and communication technologies.

·  Digital Knowledge and Culture: charting the on-going digital transformations of the sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities, and their implications.

·  Digital Politics & Government: investigating political behaviour, digital government and government-citizen interactions in the age of the internet, social media and big data.

·  Education, Well-Being and Digital Life: addressing the psychological, social and educational implications of the Internet, for people of all ages, across the full lifespan, with a particular focus on children and young people.

·  Ethics and Philosophy of Information: investigating the ethical, epistemological, logical and ontological aspects of information, its sciences, phenomena and dynamics.

·  Internet Economics: understanding the economic and social implications of new business models, new market structures, and new types of economic activity.

·  Information Governance & Security: analysing the challenges created by the digitisation of information, seeking solutions through new governance rules, processes and institutions, and investigating the relationship between emerging technologies, their design, and information security and privacy.

·  Social Data Science: seeking a quantitative understanding of how individuals behave and interact in society.

In all its research, the OII aims to operate at the cutting edge in both quantitative and qualitative methodologies that cut across disciplines and topics. Methodological innovation is

vital given the changing nature of the Internet and advances in ICTs which both necessitate

and facilitate the development of new techniques. OII researchers are developing methodologies such as the embedding of ICTs for real time observation of social phenomenon; webmetric techniques for observing the underlying structure of the web presence of social institutions; artificial intelligence design; experimental research; on-line action research; content analysis; investigation of virtual environments; and online survey research.

For more information about the Oxford Internet Institute please visit http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk

The University of Oxford is a member of the Athena SWAN Charter and holds an institutional Bronze Athena SWAN award. The Department of [XXXX] holds a departmental [Bronze] Athena award in recognition of its efforts to introduce organisational and cultural practices that promote gender equality in SET and create a better working environment for both men and women.

The Oxford Martin School Programme in Illegal Wildlife Trade

The Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford is a world-leading centre of pioneering research that addresses global challenges.We invest in research that cuts across disciplines to tackle a wide range of issues such as climate change, disease and inequality. We support novel, high risk and multidisciplinary projects that may not fit within conventional funding channels. We do this because breaking boundaries can produce results that could dramatically improve the wellbeing of this and future generations. We seek to make an impact by taking new approaches to global problems, through scientific and intellectual discovery, by developing policy recommendations and working with a wide range of stakeholders to translate them into action.

This new interdisciplinary programme, within the Oxford Martin School, is a collaboration between the Inter-disciplinary Centre for Conservation Science in the Department of Zoology (the research group of Prof EJ Milner-Gulland, Tasso Leventis Professor of Biodiversity) and the Oxford Internet Institute (the research group of Dr Joss Wright, Research Fellow). The programme also has a strong group of internal and external partners and collaborators, based in universities, NGOs and government departments in Oxford, the UK and worldwide.

The programme will revolutionise approaches to tackling the demand for illegal and unsustainable wildlife products. This will transform the products of scientific progress (internet communications, new synthetic products, rising wealth and social change) from drivers of wildlife decline to drivers of conservation. We will develop new frameworks for understanding the profiles and motivations of wildlife users, monitoring online sales of prohibited goods, promoting behavioural change, and evaluating the impact of conservation interventions. This research will support efforts to change people's relationships with wildlife onto a new path; subverting the predictable continuation of wildlife decline as a consequence of human progress, towards a new and more sustainable future.

Job description

Research topic / Design and evaluation of consumer behavioural change interventions for the illegal wildlife trade
Principal Investigator / supervisor / Professor E.J. Milner-Gulland & Dr Joss Wright
Project team
Project web site / http://www.iccs.org.uk/project/oxford-martin-programme-illegal-wildlife-trade
Funding partner
Recent publications / 1.  Olmedo Castro, A. (2015) Evaluating behaviour change interventions: a case study in Viet Nam. http://www.iccs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Olmedo_Alegria_ConSci_2015.pdf
2.  de Lange, E., Woodhouse, E., Milner-Gulland, E.J. (early view) Approaches used to evaluate the social impacts of protected areas. Conservation Letters
3.  Woodhouse, E., Homewood, K.M., Beauchamp, E., Clements, T., McCabe, J.T., Wilkie, D., Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2015) Guiding principles for evaluating the impacts of conservation interventions on human well-being. Phil Trans Roy Soc B 370 (1681)
Technical skills / Intervention design, impact evaluation, systematic review, statistical methods in social science, qualitative and quantitative data analysis.

Overview of the role

Conservation science is recognising the need to design, implement and evaluate interventions appropriately, in order robustly to attribute impact and to learn about what works and what doesn't. Interventions to change consumer demand for wildlife products away from illegal and/or unsustainable products towards more sustainable substitutes are proliferating, but most are not designed based on a strong conceptual foundation in behavioural science, nor are they appropriately implemented and monitored against performance metrics at the outcome level. They also tend to be focussed around general public awareness campaigns rather than targeted towards a specific audience and behavioural change.

There is huge expertise in other fields that currently is not being translated into conservation, including public health, development, social marketing and environmental economics. This post-doctoral position aims to address this gap, with a focus on improving the effectiveness of behavioural change campaigns targeted at consumers of illegal wildlife products in Asia.

The research assistant will be an experienced social scientist, with expertise in intervention design and evaluation, ideally in a field outside conservation. The researcher will be responsible for bringing new ideas, approaches and analytical techniques to the programme, and supporting both the programme's other researchers, and external collaborators and stakeholders, to improve their approach to intervention design and evaluation. They will bring a range of novel methods and frameworks from relevant fields into our programme, including for example systematic reviews, social marketing and the use of the Medical Research Council's framework for complex interventions.