Advanced Research Fellow

Location: South Kensington and White City campuses 

Job Summary 

The Institute for Security Science and Technology (ISST) was founded in 2008 as one of Imperial College London's Global Challenge Institutes. Working across research, innovation and education, our mission is to challenge the narrow perception of security, and demonstrate the breadth and depth of a topic that touches everyone in society, wherever they are in the world.

Societal resilience is increasingly recognised as a security challenge and priority by local and national governments, inter-governmental organisations, and nationally important companies. Imperial College London has active research in many areas relevant to this, and in 2023, ISST led the formation of the Centre for Active Resilience and Security (CARS) to serve as research, innovation and engagement hub for societal resilience at Imperial.

Society is formed of many hyper-complex adaptive systems, emergent from flows and interactions of constituent materials, information, goods, people and the natural world on which they layer. Our Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) are ‘keystone’ systems integral to societal function, increasingly interdependent and enmeshed through cyber-physical interactions. CNIs and society as a whole face threats emanating from cyber, physical, environmental, natural and biological vectors. As these vectors intersect and collide, novel threats emerge and cascade, leading to non-linear impacts. As the UK Gov’s Resilience Framework puts it, "Some risks are inherently unpredictable, or manifest in unpredictable ways - whether over a wide geographic area, or as a result of a wide range of triggers and/or other risks." Understanding the complex nature of societal systems and the threat vectors is critical to building the fundamental knowledge, tools and innovations to address societal resilience.

The ISST wishes to employ the services of Advance Research Fellow in an exciting move to support the expansion of our research and education outputs in the key themes highlighted above. The Advance Research Fellow, together with leading academics across the ISST and CARS, will be expected to produce high-impact and globally pertinent research outputs and initiatives and have a leading role in development and delivery MSc Security and Resilience: Science and Technology.

Duties and responsibilities

ISST Research Fellow will focus on the themes introduced above, they will be expected to make a significant, auditable contribution to research activities as agreed with the ISST leadership.

As the Advanced Research Fellow you will develop, own, plan and lead a high quality programme of research in the broad area of security and resilience, ensuring deliverables are achieved and where applicable, supervising and taking responsibility for research team colleagues. The post holder will undertake project management and/or supervise proposals and coordinating multi-disciplinary teams. In addition, you will be expected to submit publications to refereed journals and to attract external research funding.

Essential requirements

• PhD or equivalent research, industrial or commercial experience in a relevant area
• Knowledge of Security and Resilience
• Practical experience within a research environment and/or publications in relevant and refereed journals
• Experience of dealing with research councils and industry sponsors
• Ability to conduct a detailed review of recent literature

Further Information 

Closing date: 15 April 2024

Please contact Jane Lac, Operations Director (ISST), j.lac@imperial.ac.uk

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