Research & Outreach Officer

Hours: 0.8FTE (4 days/week)

Contract Type: 2 years, fixed-term (with potential for extension subject to funding)

Deadline: 19 July 2026, 23:59 BST (Rolling basis - apply early)

About Social Change Lab

Social Change Lab is a UK-based nonprofit producing rigorous research on social movements. We study activism to understand its role in social change, and share what we learn with the activists, organisers and funders driving change across our three priority areas: climate and environment, animal advocacy, and AI safety.

Our research includes nationally representative polls, randomised controlled trials, interviews, media analysis, literature reviews and impact analyses. We pre-register our studies and publish in peer-reviewed journals, then translate findings into practical guidance through workshops, training and open-access tools. We work directly with campaign groups and funders, from Green New Deal and Animal Rising to the Climate Emergency Fund, Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Pause AI. Our work has been covered by The Guardian, the New York Times, the BBC, Nature, the Washington Post and the Associated Press, among others. We are a small team based in London and Seville.

About the role

As Research & Outreach Officer, you will work with our two Directors of Research to design and deliver rigorous studies on the effectiveness of social movements, while getting those findings into the hands of activists, funders and journalists who can act on them.

Your time will be split roughly across four areas. Around 45% will be research: contributing to projects across our priority areas, from scoping questions through to data collection, analysis and write-up, and selecting methods that balance rigour against the constraints of a small team. Around 40% will be outreach and dissemination: media outreach and op-ed pitching, accessible research summaries and visual content, growing our newsletter and social media presence, extending the reach of our Activists Resource Hub, and presenting at external events. The remainder covers fundraising support and internal responsibilities. The actual balance will depend on your strengths and interests.

We are deliberately open on methodological background. You might come from a primarily quantitative tradition, a primarily qualitative one, or somewhere in between. What matters most is that you can conduct high quality research, work flexibly across methods, and communicate effectively to both academic and practitioner audiences.

About you

This role would suit an early- to mid-career researcher ready to work independently while bringing drive to communicating that work externally. You will have ideally at least three years' experience in a research role across academia, a non-profit, a think tank or government, and a postgraduate qualification in a relevant social science discipline or equivalent experience. You will have strong methodological skills in quantitative or qualitative methods (strength in both is welcome but not required), and a track record of producing written content for both specialist and non-specialist audiences. You will be confident representing your work at events and with stakeholders across activism, philanthropy and policy.

You are passionate about social movements and social change, effectiveness-oriented, self-motivated and well-organised, and ready to change your mind based on the evidence. Familiarity with one of our three priority areas (climate, animals, AI) is also valuable.

We understand the ideal candidate may not meet every criterion, so please err on the side of applying. We strongly encourage applications from people of marginalised backgrounds.

To read the full job description and application form, click the 'Apply' button above.

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