Postdoctoral Research Fellow (RENEW)

This full time post is available for 12 months from 1 October 2023 until 30 September 2024.

The post

The Faculty wishes to recruit an outstanding and highly motivated Research

The Faculty wishes to recruit an outstanding & highly motivated Research Fellow to participate in the ‘Community Action’ team of the NERC-funded project “Renewing biodiversity through a people-in-nature approach (RENEW).” The wider RENEW partnership seeks to develop solutions to one of the major environmental challenges for humankind, the renewal of biodiversity.

The RENEW programme includes academics & partners across environmental sciences, data science, environmental intelligence, social sciences, humanities, arts, & business. RENEW is funded by NERC & involves 33 project partners. The post is funded by Natural England, one of RENEW’s major partners and a strategic partner with the University of Exeter.

The post entails producing a systematic literature review of social science research on including &  involving communities historically excluded from nature in the biodiversity renewal efforts in the UK. Under their Protected Sites Strategy (PSS), Natural England are piloting working at five Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) across England. The PSS aims to transform these SSSIs into ‘battery packs’ for nature recovery. A central part of this work involves engaging local communities in renewal activities at the SSSIs. The post will involve liaising with teams at each of the five sites in order to establish their approaches to community inclusion. A ‘map’ of these approaches will then be used as a scaffold for the systematic review. This review will be a major building block in Natural England’s PSS as it scales up. It will also make a major research contribution of use to both academics & practitioners.

You will work closely with Professor Catriona McKinnon & Dr Alice Moseley in the Community Action Theme 2 Team. 

To inform the scope of the systematic review, the postholder will engage with PSS pilot sites & RENEW partners to further understand their research needs & interests. This will entail meetings or potentially interviews/focus groups with these partners. You will therefore need to have good partner engagement skills, & ideally have experience in using social scientific methods such as interviews or focus groups, as well as an appreciation of principles of research co-design and knowledge co-production. You will lead on or participate in the preparation of a research ethics proposal if required. An understanding of the principles of research integrity &  ethics is therefore essential.

About you

You will:

• be able to search social scientific & scientific research databases in a systematic and organised way, retrieve information and maintain accurate records of search results, distil key findings from the identified literature, and write these up in a clear and accessible way with input from co-authors
• have experience/knowledge of systematic reviewing methodology or a willingness & ability to learn this
• possess a relevant PhD or equivalent qualification/experience ideally in a social science, or on a topic of relevance to the project brief
• possess sufficient specialist knowledge in the social sciences or topics of the project brief to be able to undertake the required research & reviewing activity
• be able to search research literature databases, use bibliographic referencing software

Please read the Job Description for full details of this role.

Benefits

Including:

• 41 days leave
•  flexible working
• onsite gyms 
• sector leading policies around maternity, adoption & shared parental leave 
• stunning campus environments in South West of England

Further information

Please contact Professor Catriona McKinnon, c.mckinnon@exeter.ac.uk

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