Research Associate in Environmental Analytics

The University of Manchester has an exciting opportunity for someone with strong statistical and/or machine learning and programming skills to join an interdisciplinary project team to help support the development of the £8m NERC funded Digital Solutions Programme. You will be working with a mixture of academics, post-doctoral researchers, software engineers and a broad user community and working closely with the Programme leader, Professor Richard Kingston.

As a researcher working on this Programme you will play a key role in creating successful outcomes that are aligned to stakeholder needs, through applying your expertise in the development and application of statistical and/or machine learning analytics. Reporting to the Director and Deputy Director of the Programme, you will be working within a cross-functional programme team comprising Researchers, Software Engineers, and other domain experts. You will be responsible for working with key stake holders from the programme to understand and translate required insights into appropriate software tools that will connect with data held by NERC. You will review and formulate roadmaps for appropriate data analytics that sit on top of the new Digital Solutions hub, including continual review of methods found across the geosciences. These insights will be used to build Digital Solutions capabilities aligned to user needs.

NERC’s Digital Solutions programme was created to develop innovative digital services that deliver economic, societal, and environmental benefits across the UK.  It has been designed to move beyond just academic use and exploitation of existing data holdings.  Our ethos is to build a Digital Solutions Hub as a gateway to a broad set of inter-connected toolkits that facilitate improved access and better use of NERC data.  These may already exist, or will be created with our partners, which include the NHS, Defra, PHE and HSE, as well as local and regional SMEs and individual members of society.  Providing easier access to NERC’s environmental data offers opportunities for improving peoples’ health and better understanding the impacts of climate change on people, land, and property across the UK.  Initially we will focus on two areas ‘A Connected Healthy Nation’ and ‘A Climate Ready Nation’ as use cases.  It is expected, as the programme develops, more use cases will come online.

The focus of the Digital Solutions Programme, based at the University of Manchester, is to build a UK wide decision support system at the cutting edge of theory and practice and will contribute to improvements in the overall quality of environmental decision making in public, private and third sector settings throughout the UK.  Developing productive partnerships with policymakers and practitioners in a range of sectors, including social, economic, environmental and health will be a key role for these posts. This is to ensure the digital solutions programme develops a working ‘hub’ that support their short, medium and longer term planning.

As an equal opportunities employer we welcome applicants from all sections of the community regardless of age, sex, gender (or gender identity), ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation and transgender status.  All appointments are made on merit.

Our University is positive about flexible working – you can find out more here ​​​​​​​

Blended working arrangements may be considered              

Please note that we are unable to respond to enquiries, accept CVs or applications from Recruitment Agencies.

Enquiries about the vacancy, shortlisting and interviews:

Name: Richard Kingston

Email: [email protected]

General enquiries:

Email: [email protected]

Technical support:

https://jobseekersupport.jobtrain.co.uk/support/home

This vacancy will close for applications at midnight on the closing date.

Please see the link below for the Further Particulars document which contains the person specification criteria.