The Behavioural Insights Team’s Ventures group (BI Ventures) is looking for an exceptional Research Advisor to join Predictiv, BIT’s online experimentation platform (www.predictiv.co.uk). The role will involve working closely with the Predictiv core team (Head of Product, Head of Growth and Lab Manager) to deliver a growing pipeline of projects.

The successful candidate will conduct a range of experiments looking at behaviour across the policy spectrum, from investment and savings decisions, to ethical uses of personal data. You will work with colleagues at BIT and with external clients to design and run online experiments, analyse the data and generate reports that can be delivered to clients. In addition, you will support the Predictiv core team in developing the platform to best support policy makers and other organisations. You will likely have a strong background in experimental methods and data analysis, for example as part of your academic training. And you will also be comfortable in managing multiple projects simultaneously.

About the Behavioural Insights Team

BIT is a global leader in the application of behavioural science to inform public policy and tackle societal challenges. The then Prime Minister created BIT in 2010 and in February 2014 we became a social purpose company, jointly 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 test and 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.

About BI Ventures and Predictiv

BI Ventures uses behavioural science to build scalable products with a social impact.

BI Ventures uses cutting edge insights from the broad range of projects at BIT – including data science, successful interventions from field trials, qualitative research, policy research and the academic literature. These unique insights are the starting point for the development of digital products and services to solve social issues. Our objective is to create commercially viable start-ups that help to scale the impact of BIT’s interventions.

BI Ventures is at the heart of BIT’s 3 year strategy. There is therefore an opportunity for the successful candidate to progress to a more senior role as BI Ventures grows.

Predictiv (www.predictiv.co.uk) is an online experimentation platform built by BIT to run Randomised Controlled Trials with online participants. It enables governments and other organisations to test new policies and interventions before they are deployed in the real world. To date, Predictiv has supported more than 25 unique governments departments and organisations across more than 50 projects across the policy spectrum in the UK and abroad.

Predictiv online experiments are a valuable addition to a methodological toolkit: they offer a high degree of flexibility to test different ideas; can deliver results within short timeframes; and provide quantitative, causal evidence on which ideas are the most promising for changing behaviour. They are also generally cheaper than other statistically valid research methods, and provide robust data complementing the depth of insight gained through traditional qualitative methods.

Predictiv is currently scaling its operations to support policy makers more broadly and efficiently, which is why we are building out the team to meet the growing demand for experiments undertaken on the platform.

Roles and Responsibilities

In this role you will be working alongside BIT policy colleagues and directly with clients to design online experiments that fit the research question. You will set up and manage experiments on the Predictiv platform in addition to cleaning the data collected and conducting analysis in line with trial protocols.

You will report on results to clients internally and externally which may involve presenting findings to clients. You will work closely with the Head of Product to help guide the development of new features for the platform in response to BIT and client demand and also work with the Head of Growth to support Predictiv client development, such as presenting case studies to potential clients and support with writing client proposals for new work.

Skills and experience

The Behavioural Insights Team brings together people 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 the areas mentioned:

Essential

All candidates must be able to demonstrate:

• Understanding of experimental methods from either economics or psychology and ability to generate practical ideas pertinent to client problems. Experience or training in using and analysing experimental data sets (such as administrative data) for the purposes of evaluation or predictive modelling;

• Experience using statistical software (ideally Stata or R);

• Experience in presenting data and the analysis results in a way that makes complex findings accessible and useful to an audience of policymakers and practitioners;

• Experience in project management, in particular managing several projects concurrently, to time and budget; and

• Creative thinking and pragmatism, challenging existing assumptions and thinking of solutions to implementation problems.

Desirable

Finally, it would be desirable if you have:

• A Masters or PhD in a relevant subject area (including, but not limited to, economics or psychology);

• Experience working in a startup environment or on a small product team;

• Experience in client development; and

• Experience constructing experiments using Qualtrics, Survey Monkey or laboratory platforms, such as zTree.

Next Steps

The highest scorers on Applied will be invited to complete a technical assessment before an interview.

Technical assessments are due to take place: Mid/ late March

Interviews are due to take place: Late March 2019

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: www.bi.team

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