Research Coordinator

Land, and the way that it is owned and managed, impacts on all of us. It has different places
in all of our histories, whatever our backgrounds or heritage, whether our experience is of
public or private ownership, colonialism, dispossession, or migration, the difficulties of
making a living in a rural economy or the daily impacts of urbanisation and gentrification. How
we currently own, manage and make decisions about land lies at the heart of many of our current
social, economic and environmental challenges and injustices.

We undertake advice & support, research, movement building, communications and resourcing
work to support, mobilise and advocate for the development of models of managing land that
create shared social, economic and environmental benefits. We see systems change as a core
value of our work and seek to be transformative, both through externally-facing projects and
internal approaches and ways of working.

Our research work supports collective learning related to working on and with the land. We
communicate our findings through articles, blogs, podcasts, reports, events, and more –
building a shared evidence base to support the development of a just land system. Through our
research, we seek to make an impact at a local and a systemic level. We want to create
conditions that allow people and communities to thrive, and promote care for the land and
environment. We do this work on both a commercial and grant funded basis.

We expect this role to focus on securing and delivering research that is participative,
practical and pressing for the land justice movement.

The role holder will lead the full range of Shared Assets’ research projects, from scoping and
design through to delivery, follow up and evaluation. They will need to have experience of
designing and carrying out research and learning activities with a wide range of partners –
including academics, community groups, NGOS and local authorities – in collaborative ways. In
the past we have worked on research projects of many scales – from large European Union funded
consortia, to smaller, one-off pieces which help a local authority or community organisation
move forward with their work. Often our research work involves collaborating with a group of
other civil society organisations to provide evidence of why change in the land, food and
farming system is needed, and generate action on these issues.

The main areas of work are to: manage and deliver funded research projects (or projects with a
research component) with partners, reflect with colleagues on what we are learning within and
across workstreams as an organisation and sector, use this knowledge to create new ideas for
research work, and support fundraising for these, as part of our ‘infrastructure’ role.