United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Senior Researcher on Influencing and its Effectiveness

Are you passionate about disrupting power imbalances that keep people poor? And are you deeply curious about how best to do that through campaigning and advocacy? Have you undertaken research about what makes influencing strategies effective? Then we’ve got an exciting job for you in a team that cares deeply about research for impact.

Oxfam’s Campaigns, Policy, and Influencing Team (CPIT) aims to strengthen the power of people to influence people with power. In order to have the greatest impact, we need campaigns and advocacy work to be based on the clearest possible understanding of how to be effective. And we need you to make that happen.

What we need you to do

Based in Oxfam’s Research Team within CPIT, you will contribute to outstanding thought leadership on influencing strategies and how to assess their effectiveness, in equal measure. We look to you to provide intellectual leadership on identifying, analysing and communicating what influencing strategies work for who and what under which conditions.You will do this with global and UK campaigns, regional and country teams in (rapidly) changing policy spaces, while keeping an eye on big trends. We need you to provide state of the art technical advice on monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) of influencing initiatives. This means working closely with the dynamic campaign teams and MEL staff to improve the quality of Oxfams’ influencing work. Your work will directly support Oxfam’s transition towards a Worldwide Influencing Network, making first class advocacy and public campaigning the foundation of Oxfam’s work.

What we’re looking for

You will have a strong track record of high quality, innovative research and evaluative thinking on influencing strategies and MEL. Your work has already related closely to Oxfam’s priorities as stated in the Oxfam International strategic plan. You will have a high level of expertise in qualitative research and evaluation methodology and be up-to-date about current quantitative research methods relevant to this topic. You will be able engage authoritatively with policy makers and non-specialised audiences alike. Because of the close working relationships with others in Oxfam, you will be a team player with strong collaboration, communication and training skills. Your expertise will be grounded in political/social science and evaluation methodology. You’ll need to be able to work in English and French or Spanish, and share our passion for and commitment to eradicating poverty.

About Oxfam

A simple, inescapable truth underlines everything we do at Oxfam. There’s enough wealth in this world to go around. It’s not unfortunate that people live in poverty. It’s unjustifiable and avoidable. It’s not just their problem. It’s ours too. And with the right support, we can beat poverty and injustice. Thousands of people already commit their time and talents to our campaigning, humanitarian and long-term development projects. Now we’re looking for yours.