We are seeking a full-time researcher / writer to join our small but growing international team. Note that while you will be based at an academic institution and be expected to produce intellectually rigorous work you will not be writing for academic journals. Your focus will be on writing clear, balanced and thoughtful analytical pieces for professionals who work in the food systems space. These include people working for NGOs, policy makers, the food industry as well as students and academics. These pieces will be peer reviewed and published on the TABLE website and as such will be read by a large and global audience.
Reporting to Senior Researcher and Director of TABLE Dr Tara Garnett
The successful candidate will possess this combination of qualification and qualities: a PhD (or at minimum a Masters and very considerable research/writing experience), excellent research skills, a demonstrable ability to write in a balanced, clear and accessible way for non-academic audiences, an open mind, and a desire to communicate, working at the interface of research and practice.
Responsibilities
The resources we produce on the TABLE website set out the evidence, assumptions, and values underpinning different viewpoints on food systems controversies – controversies that have a profound bearing on how we go about tackling food-related climate change, using land, the ways in which food production and distribution are managed and practiced, the governance arrangements, and foods we eat. Through mapping debates, our goal is to highlight critical differences and areas of agreement, identify research questions to help resolve uncertainties, and suggest paths forward.
Your main responsibility will be writing thoughtful, peer reviewed analytical pieces, to be published on the TABLE website and aimed at its growing audience of food system stakeholders, who span civil society, academia, policy and industry. These pieces will focus on the themes we have selected, which change approximately every year. We want your writing to dig beneath the surface of debates to explore the values and assumptions people bring to their selection and use of evidence and the way these shape their analyses of what the problem is, as well as their argued solutions. You will do this by drawing upon our various dialogue processes, including podcasts, webinars, workshops and our online dialogue platform as well as on literature review. The goal is to help stakeholders reach a better understanding of the reasons for agreements and disagreements, while highlighting areas that hold promise for more collaborative thinking and consensus.
You will also collaborate with other team members in the production of short explanatory videos, organising events and other TABLE activities, and speaking as appropriate.
