Research and Evaluation Manager

Job id: 083726. Salary: £43,205 – £45,521, including London Weighting Allowance.

Posted: 05 February 2024. Closing date: 18 February 2024.

Business unit: Students & Education. Department: Social Mobility & Widening Participation.

Contact details:Michael Bennett. [email protected]

Location: Strand Campus. Category: Professional & Support Services.

Job description

About us

The King’s community is dedicated to the service of society. King’s Strategic Vision 2029 sets out our vision for the future, shaped around five priority areas: educate to inspire and improve; research to inform and innovate; serve to shape and transform; a civic university at the heart of London; and an international community that services the world. Our ambitious Education Strategy sets out the actions that we must take to transform how we teach, how and where our students learn and how we support them during their time with us.

Within the Social Mobility & Widening Participation Department we believe all young people should be able to have high expectations for their future. This means equal access to education and career opportunities. We run programmes that aim to empower young people from under-represented backgrounds to access and succeed at university.

We are part of the Students & Education Directorate, a collection of wide-ranging professional services in place to support King’s students and their education. As a directorate we manage the student lifecycle from application to graduation and beyond, to ensure a coherent and seamless student experience and effective administrative processes, working closely with King’s faculties to do so.

About the role

The Research and Evaluation Manager will work to position King’s College London as a sector leader on conducting institutional evaluation and research to understand how we can support students from underrepresented groups to access university and succeed at university. Our team aims to generate causal evidence, either through Randomised Controlled Trials or Quasi-experimental designs.

This is an exciting opportunity for candidates looking to work in research and evaluation in an applied context, and who wish to utilise their skills and expertise in quantitative and qualitative methods. This is an opportunity to grow your skills in generating and applying evidence to practice.

We encourage applications from candidates who have experience from both within and outside of the Higher Education sector where they can demonstrate the skills needed to succeed in this role.

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

This is a full-time post, but we welcome applications from candidates seeking a flexible work pattern within our necessary service operating hours of 10am-4pm.

This post will be offered on a fixed term basis.

Key responsibilities

• Supervise and lead on a range of research & evaluation activities, including synthesis of secondary research; conducting qualitative, quantitative and/or survey designs; developing and delivering randomised controlled trials (and other experimental trials as appropriate)

  Convey research findings, including complex quantitative information, in a clear and actionable way

• Develop and maintain expertise in behavioural research and evaluation methodologies

• Work with academics and practitioners to test and trial new approaches to widening participation and student success

• Line manage the Senior Research and Evaluation Adviser

Skills, knowledge, and experience

Essential criteria

Relevant work experience and/or education: We think a wide range of different work and educational experiences could support you to be successful in this role. Relevant work experience might include work in any research or evaluation job. Relevant educational experiences might include higher education in a related discipline, professional qualifications or other training

Ability to consider and select appropriate research designs and methodologies, using qualitative and quantitative methods including surveying, interviewing and running focus groups

Experience establishing causal inference in research when evaluating projects or interventions with experimental methods (e.g. quasi-experimental methods, randomised controlled trials)

Experience in designing and running multiple social research and evaluation projects, managing competing demands and timescales and delivering to milestones

Confident in conducting data analysis including handling large data sets and statistical testing using relevant software (such as Power BI, R, Stata, or SPSS) and presenting findings in various formats

Confident and clear written and verbal communication, including report-writing, data visualisation and presentation skills

Ability to give a team clear direction and guide it to the successful completion of a task

Ability to identify and manage the objectives, performance, and development needs of others

Desirable criteria

Postgraduate degree or qualification in research methods, statistics, analytics or a related field and/or relevant experience

Experience using behavioural insights in a research or policy context to positively influence behaviour

Understanding of the widening participation agenda and/or the role of higher education in social mobility

Further information

Please submit a personal statement when applying for this vacancy, clearly setting out how you meet the essential criteria, as this is how we shortlist applications. Learn more about how we recruit, including tips on writing your application and supporting statement on our website:  https://jobs.kcl.ac.uk/gb/en/applying .

If you are a student or alumni of King’s there are resources from King’s Careers & Employability to support you in your application and interview.

Interviews will be held using Microsoft Teams and will consist of competency-based questions linked closely to the essential and desirable criteria mentioned above.

Interviews are scheduled to take place on week commencing 19th February 2024.