Research Associate and Coordinator - Future Skills Think Tank

Role Type: 9 months fixed-term contract

Closing date: 3 June 2024 (23.59 BST)

Interviews: Friday 31 May and Monday 3 June

Salary: £40,000 per annum 0.6 FTE (£18,000 pro-rated 9 months fixed-term contract)

Hours: 3 days per week – 21 hours per week 

The London School of Architecture  (LSA) is an independent higher education provider registered through the Charity Commission as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). The first cohort of students were enrolled in 2015.  

The LSA was founded as a radical disrupter of conventional forms of architectural education aimed at creating more equitable and sustainable cities and widening access to the profession. Now ten years old, the LSA is undergoing an exciting period of growth by expanding its range of innovative academic programmes designed to respond to urgent social and environmental agendas. 

We currently offer courses in city making for 13-18 year olds (Part 0), a two-year postgraduate Masters (MArch) in Designing Architecture ARB/RIBA Part 2 and a post-professional programme of short courses for practitioners (Part 4). The next project is to develop a series of new programmes at educational levels 4-6 (undergraduate degree equivalent) that specifically privilege green skills and multi-disciplinary thinking and practice in construction, engineering and other built environment disciplines. 

Project overview - FUTURE SKILLS THINK TANK

The LSA is seeking a highly competent, creative and collaborative research associate to lead on gathering and coordinating evidence to inform this strategic next step. The year-long research and advocacy project will focus on the following areas to define industry need, design scalable programmes and build capacity for the LSA to deliver on its access agenda:

FOCUS AREAS

• PATHWAYS: to understand desirable and viable pathways for underserved and underrepresented young people and career changers in the built environment sector
• STANDARDS: to map and audit all existing academic and occupational standards across built environment disciplines from educational levels 3-7
• INDUSTRIALSTRATEGY: outline a progressive industrial strategy for construction in relation to sector-wide green skills shortages
• PROCUREMENT: explore how to leverage social value, EDI and other procurement criteria to contribute to the sustaining and scaling of new programmes
• LITERACY: understand how democratising the language, knowledge and understanding of place can play an impactful role in engaging new publics to the profession; identify cross-sector future skills
• POLICY: aim to influence policy in relation to social mobility and skills opportunities around housing supply; industrial strategy and skills-needs; achieving net-zero through just transition; healthier and sustainable communities. 

Please submit an application if you are:

• An excellent collaborator and communicator: written, verbal and inter-personal
• Confident and rigorous in desk-based and in-person research
• Confident in project planning, management and implementation against strict deadlines.
• Meticulous in managing project data, information flows and budgets
• Assertive in liaising with key funders and stakeholders
• Writing and producing reports
• Have a Doctoral or Post-doctoral qualifications (or equivalent qualification/experience) in the built environment, social policy, or other cognate areas to the focuses of the project