United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Research Fellow

ODI (www.odi.org.uk) aims to inspire and inform policy and practice to reduce poverty by locking together high-quality applied research and practical policy advice.

We are seeking to appoint a Research Fellow to strengthen our work on climate change adaptation, disaster risk and resilience. This position will join a particularly active group, which has been successful in attracting numerous multi-year projects and has enjoyed increasing influence in international and national policy agendas.

As a Research Fellow in the Adaptation and Resilience team, the post-holder will be responsible for developing, fundraising for, conducting and managing high-quality and innovative research, policy advice and public affairs programmes, broadly within the Institute’s overall strategy and with the aim of inspiring and informing policy.

Our Adaptation and Resilience Team consists of a core team of 14 who investigate the concepts of resilience, disaster risk reduction and adaptation. Core conceptual research interests within the team include: the science-knowledge-policy nexus; governance and politics; transitions and transformations; and understanding and operationalising resilience. As well as this core team, many other ODI programmes also engage with the team in collaborative work on adaptation and resilience.

Our ways of working include:

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  Carrying out primary research and synthesis of a range of thematic areas.

  
  


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  Providing policy advice and outreach to improve the uptake of risk management and resilience-building approaches across donors and national and sub-national government departments, focusing on water, agriculture and economic growth/finance sectors and ministries.

  
  


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  Partnering, mentoring and acting as intermediaries between climate scientists, social scientists and decision-makers, including evaluating the new geography of risk and poverty.

  
  


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  Playing a critical role in promoting disaster risk management in post-2015 development and climate agreements, including shaping the outcomes of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

  
  


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  Providing knowledge management, for instance through our role as Knowledge Manager for the Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters (BRACED) project; and Pathways to resilience in semi-arid economies (PRISE).

  
  

Our emerging research and policy themes on resilience, disaster risk and adaptation include:

• Frameworks and measurement


• Governance and institutional change


• Resilience in difficult environments, including fragile and conflict affected states


• Climate risk information and information and Communications Technology (ICTs)


• Gender equality and inclusion


• Urban resilience


• Semi-arid economies and ecosystems