Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Quantitative Political Behaviour and Political Economy

Full time , Fixed Term Contract until October 2028

The closing date for applications is 23.59 on 22nd February 2026

Interview Date - 11th March 2026

Due to the complexity of the Skilled Worker Visa route and eligibility criteria, applicants requiring sponsorship are recommended to check their eligibility on the Home Office website. We cannot provide advice to candidates at the application stage and will only discuss visa routes with candidates who are invited to interview.

The Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Reading welcomes applications for a full-time, 2.5-year (with the possibility to extend until March 2029) Postdoctoral Research position in Quantitative Political Behaviour and Political Economy for the UKRI-funded project ‘DIVIDED: Inequality and Polarization Prevention’ (PI: Dr Miriam Sorace). Partners of the project include the London School of Economics (LSE) Data Science Institute (DSI), the UK Labour’s Party HQ Data and Insight team, Opinium, and the European Election Studies. The postdoctoral researcher will be embedded in, and help run, the Public Opinion Analytics Lab (www.poal.co.uk).

We are seeking to appoint a highly motivated empirical political scientist with demonstrable potential to produce exciting, innovative, and methodologically rigorous quantitative research in political economy and political behaviour, with very strong expertise in quantitative methods. The successful candidate will have a PhD in Political Science, Economics, or a related field.

The post is based in the Department of Politics and IR, a department with internationally-recognised strengths in Comparative Politics, Political Theory, and IR. We have performed very strongly in the last two REF assessments, ranking 6th for research outputs in 2021 (Politics and International Studies, when scoring by Output GPA), having been =10th on the same measure in 2014 (see https://www.ref.ac.uk/).

Main duties and responsibilities

Pursuing an exciting, ambitious, and innovative research agenda in political behaviour, political economy, and/or in survey and social science methodology;

Working alongside the PI and Opinium in designing and carrying out all statistical and experimental analyses;

Supporting in data architecture/infrastructure work, helping to collect, clean and organise existing and original large datasets;

Co-authoring in all academic and non-academic outputs from the project;

Pursuing Continuing Professional Development in research methods for the project, and optionally in areas like impact or teaching;

Supporting colleagues by attending regular team meetings and providing academic/methodological advice as needed.

This is a full-time, temporary post (31 months, with the possibility to extend to 36), tenable soon after interview. To apply, please ensure your Supporting Statement outlines how you meet all the criteria outlined in the Person Specification and include a section with working and published academic papers to your CV before uploading. Please also upload a cover letter (2 pages maximum and under 500KB) with your application.

Contact details for advert

Contact Name Miriam Sorace

Contact Job Title Associate Professor in Comparative Politics

Contact Email address m.sorace@reading.ac.uk

Alternative Contact Name Vladimir Rauta

Alternative Contact Job Title Head of Department of Politics and International Relations

Alternative Contact Email address v.rauta@reading.ac.uk

The University is committed to having a diverse and inclusive workforce, supports the gender equality Athena SWAN Charter and the Race Equality Charter, and champions LGBT+ equality. We are a Disability Confident Employer (Level 2). Applications for job-share, part-time and flexible working arrangements are welcomed and will be considered in line with business needs.

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