University of Cambridge

Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication

Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics

Salary: £26,715 to £30,942 per annum
Hours: Full Time
Limit of Tenure: one year
Placed On: 27th November 2019
Closes: 12th December 2019

We are looking for a research assistant to join the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication as part of the European RISE project to help communicate seismic risk across Europe. This position will suit someone with excellent interpersonal and language skills keen to help us understand the needs of our audiences and how things are currently done in other fields. The successful candidate will be working at a practical level to develop, implement and evaluate new pathways of seismic communication in three European countries: Italy, Switzerland and France. Closely collaborating with international teams, led by ETH Zurich. This will involve applying knowledge of existing psychological research into how people understand risk and work talking with potential audiences for the communications (from public to emergency responders and policy-makers) to develop and implement graphically-displayed and dynamically-changing risk information.

The ideal candidate will likely have a degree in psychology, although someone with a background in geoscience or engineering accompanied by experience in qualitative techniques and analysing experimental data might also suit. The ideal candidate will have a range of research skills including reviewing literature; designing experimental studies; experience conducting focus groups and structured interviews; and analysing complex data. Excellent English and an ability to interview people in another language is essential: ideally Italian but French, German or Japanese would also be useful.

Duties include reviewing literature, telephoning and meeting people in different countries who either communicate or make decisions based on risk information, and helping develop, conduct and analyse both qualitative and quantitative studies to evaluating how people understand and perceive risks. The post holder will be expected to be willing to travel to and work in a number of countries.

To apply online for this vacancy and to view further information about the role, please visit:

http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/24204/

To submit an application for this vacancy, please click on the link in the ‘Apply online’ button of the advert published on the University of Cambridge’s Job Opportunities pages. This will route you to the University’s Web Recruitment System, where you will need to register an account (if you have not already) and log in before completing the online application form.

Please indicate the contact details of two academic referees on the online application form and upload a full curriculum vitae (not to exceed three pages) and a covering letter (not to exceed two pages). Please ensure that at least one of your referees is contactable at any time during the selection process, and is made aware that they will be contacted by the Mathematics HR Office Administrator to request that they upload a reference for you to our Web Recruitment System; and please encourage them to do so promptly. Please do not exceed the page limit in order to keep selection as fair as possible we have a strict recruitment procedure.

Limit of tenure: one year

The University actively supports equality, diversity and inclusion and encourages applications from all sections of society. We particularly welcome applications from candidates from a BME background for this vacancy as they are currently under-represented at this level in our Department.

The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK