I recently attended a panel\u00a0event on research roles outside of academia in Humanities and Social Sciences. There was a fascinating array of speakers from central and local government, think tanks, charities and social research organisations. I'm going to write up the information gleaned from the speakers in a series of blog posts - starting today with research in government and parliament.*<\/p>\n
Research roles in parliament<\/strong><\/p>\n The first speaker we heard from was A, a Senior Research Analyst in parliament.\u00a0A spends most of his time reading and writing, taking questions on aspects of policy from\u00a0MPs,\u00a0 and preparing briefings.\u00a0 He emphasised that his current role uses research skills rather than research methodologies \u2013 reading and synthesising information very quickly and working out what is most important.\u00a0A sometimes needs to challenge or clarify the requests he receives for research \u2013 sometimes what people think they need to know isn\u2019t what they actually need to know. He\u00a0also emphasised the importance of understanding customers\u2019 needs and producing a brief with a coherent narrative that can be understood by non-specialists, and clearly explaining any complex terms and jargon. The role involves gathering together others\u2019 research rather than conducting primary research, and\u00a0A felt that research skills were more important than specific knowledge, which can be learned on the job.<\/p>\n Before his current role\u00a0A did a PhD and then a series of short term research contracts. In A's current team of 8, \u00a04 people have\u00a0PhDs, of which two currently\u00a0work on topics related to their\u00a0PhD.\u00a0A didn\u2019t feel a PhD was necessary to do the job. His advice on getting in to research roles in parliament included showing\u00a0genuine interest in the job, and highlighting\u00a0your ability to judge between different information sources and communicate to range of audiences.\u00a0\u00a0He mentioned the good conditions of work, standard working hours and opportunities to work with interesting people. Research jobs in parliament come up rarely, and are\u00a0advertised on www.parliament.co.uk.<\/p>\n We also heard from B, a parliamentary researcher and PhD student. Before his current role\u00a0B had had a range of experience and voluntary roles\u00a0- immediately after his first degree he\u00a0worked as a campaign intern and then for an NGO. His current role involves\u00a0\u00a0reading local newspapers and reporting back on issues to the MP he works for, doing casework (for which he makes use of the\u00a0parliamentary research unit) and looking\u00a0after the MP\u2019s website. In B's view the role is a good way to gain insight into how parliament works. He took initiative to contact the MP and ask for work, and emphasised the importance of internships and work experience; volunteering\u00a0on local election campaigns could be useful. When working for an MP it is important to have the\u00a0right political sympathies.\u00a0B noted that lots of the people he works with have higher degrees; he considered this useful for honing skills in writing and condensing information. Roles are advertised on the w4mp<\/a> website.<\/p>\n Research roles in government<\/strong><\/p>\n We heard from three speakers working in research positions in central and local government<\/p>\n C, a\u00a0researcher in the Department for Communities and Local Government, works on research projects relating to local public services - current projects include analysing the impact of Brexit on local public services.\u00a0C did a PhD and then short term research contracts for universitiesand economic consultancies. She said she prefers research in government to research in academia because of the\u00a0greater sense of impact and audience;\u00a0she also\u00a0values the team research environment of\u00a0 the Civil Service. C entered the Civil Service through direct entry \u2013 there are quite a few direct entry analytical roles advertised on the\u00a0Civil Service jobs website. Her role involves gathering evidence to ensure better decision making,\u00a0using both qualitative and quantitative research skills. She felt she is valued for her analytical and communication skills rather than specific knowledge. She works at pace and has to get to grips with a wide range of policy areas.\u00a0\u00a0She commented on the\u00a0good work\/life balance within Civil Service but also on pressure due to reduced budgets and staffing. She works closely\u00a0with policy colleagues, and noted that some policy roles are also heavily analytical.<\/p>\n D\u00a0works for a County Council\u00a0in the Insight\u00a0team of 10 people. The Insight\u00a0team\u00a0is part of the wider Performance team of 40, which includes analysts, researchers and technical staff. Before his current role\u00a0D worked in finance and performance management. D\u2019s core business is storytelling with data; he mentioned the importance\u00a0of \u00a0communicating an\u00a0impactful story in a\u00a0short space of time. Skills in stakeholder engagement are as crucial to his role\u00a0as analytical skills. IT and technical skills are also important.<\/p>\n The final speaker in this first panel, E, had worked in the private sector before setting up her\u00a0own public sector consultancy. E observed that there are lots of ways to do freelance work with organisations like Capita and Manpower.\u00a0E\u00a0volunteered for Citizens Advice which was\u00a0useful for developing the interviewing and active listening skills she uses as part of research. E uses high level qualitative and quantitative research skills to\u00a0conduct situational analysis of organisations; she analyses what\u2019s working and what isn\u2019t, looks at work culture and aspirations of staff. E noted that there is a move towards action-led research, with a\u00a0focus on continuous sharing and learning throughout research projects - the nature of her research work is therefore\u00a0highly collaborative. Like A, E noted that it\u2019s sometimes necessary to challenge the premise of clients\u2019 requests and research questions \u2013 sometimes there are other issues than the ones the client presents with or requests research on. It's important to be curious and to be able to challenge views and say no.<\/p>\n See also my colleague Sue's post<\/a> on working in the Civil Service, and our guide<\/a> to careers in Politics.<\/p>\n *Names and full details of organisations have been taken out<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I recently attended a panel\u00a0event on research roles outside of academia in Humanities and Social Sciences. There was a fascinating array of speakers from central and local government, think tanks, charities and social research organisations. I'm going to write up...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[748],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}