Humanities and Public Policy Officer

The Humanities and Public Policy Officer is part of the University-wide Policy Engagement Team, which supports the development of the Oxford Policy Engagement Network (OPEN), a growing community of more than 800 researchers and professional services staff at the University whose members share a vision of public policy powered by the world’s best available research evidence and expertise.

As Humanities and Public Policy Officer, your focus will be on increasing participation by Humanities researchers in OPEN, enabling them to share evidence with policymakers and support its use in decision-making, understand policymaking better; and to broaden and deepen their policy networks. You will broker connections and engagement between them and potential partners in the policymaking community, offering advice and guidance, sharing resources, and contributing to learning and development activities to support their planning, managing, and learning from, engagement. You will also promote and support uptake of that by Humanities researchers of funding opportunities that enable them to learn from first-hand experience of engagement, and work with them to showcase their engagement.

You will work closely with others in the Policy Engagement Team, liaising with colleagues in the Humanities Divisional Office and Faculties responsible for research facilitation, impact and engagement, signposting researchers and others to the most appropriate support. You will broker mutually beneficial opportunities for engagement from the policymaking community, connecting them with relevant researchers at the University. You will also participate in the Universities Policy Engagement Network, enhancing Oxford’s contribution to, and benefit from it.

You will bring to this role an understanding of policymaking culture and process, and of the value of Humanities research to public policy. You will be able to facilitate the exchange of ideas, evidence and expertise between researchers and policymakers, build rapport with academics at all career stages and external stakeholders, and will have a hands-on approach to solving problems and supporting researchers, dealing effectively with competing demands from multiple stakeholders.

For an informal discussion about the role, please contact william.pryor@socsci.ox.ac.uk.

This is a full-time, fixed-term role until 31 July 2025. Flexible working arrangements will be considered.

Applications should be made online. For further details, please see the Job Description. Only applications received before 12:00 BST on 28 March 2023 can be considered. Interviews are scheduled for 20 April 2023.