The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) is looking for an exceptional candidate to join us as a Research Advisor in our Research and Evaluation team. In this role you will work both within our Social Capital team, focused on interventions encouraging volunteering, charitable giving, and improving life chances and inclusion, and as part of the Core Research Team to design, conduct and evaluate randomised controlled trials (RCTs) across the public policy spectrum. In particular, we are keen to recruit a candidate with a strong background in the quantitative data analysis of RCTs.

The role will involve working with the Chief Scientist and the Head of Social Capital to develop BIT’s expertise in this area. You will be expected to work with a wide variety of partner organisations to help develop cutting edge behavioural insights interventions and to test them in the field, with a particular focus increasing engagement with government services and volunteering.

The 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. The Behavioural Insights Team works with governments around the world in almost every area of Government 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 come up with innovative ideas for solving policy problems and we measure everything we do as robustly as we can.

BIT selects staff on the basis of cultural fit: all our staff believe passionately in our company values: always prioritising social impact; empiricism and humility; fresh thinking, collaboration; and public service. Role and Responsibilities

Our Research 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 work with partners to test new interventions in social action and pro-social behaviour, as well as developing and testing interventions that represent advances in our understanding of human behaviour.

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.

• A strong background in social science (economics, psychology) research methods;
• Experience working as a part of a team, while managing your own time;
• Experience having conducted, ideally in a leading role, multiple randomised controlled trials or quasi-experimental evaluations;
• 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;
• Experience using software packages for either quantitative analysis (e.g. STATA or R), at an expert or competitive level; and
• Interest in the programme of research and the policy area, including pro-social behaviour, social capital, social action, and volunteering.

• 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.

• Some of the personal data you provide to Applied when you apply for a role with The Behavioural Insights Team will be passed on to The Behavioural Insights Team for the purposes of (a) reviewing your application; (b) inviting you for interview; and/or (c) offering you a job and getting you set up as an employee/contractor. If your application is not successful, any personal data provided to us by Applied (including any personal data relating to equal opportunities monitoring as set out above) will be retained by The Behavioural Insights Team for no longer than 6 months after the application deadline has passed (other than in exceptional circumstances where we may need to retain your personal data for longer), at which point your personal data will be securely deleted. We only keep your information for that period in order to allow us to comply with relevant legal obligations.