UPGRO Research Associate in the Department of Geography

Summary:
Research Associate: Rural groundwater and poverty: Governance, institutions and access.
This appointment is a full-time, three year post, awarded as part of a NERC-ESRC-DFID programme of research ‘Understanding groundwater and poverty’ (UPGRO). Professor Frances Cleaver is co-leading (with Professor Alan MacDonald at British Geological Survey) a consortium conducting a £1.9 million project 4 year project ‘A Hidden Crisis: unravelling current failures for future success in rural groundwater supply’. This multi-disciplinary, 3 country (Malawi, Ethiopia, Uganda) project requires significant social science expertise to address the theme of ‘Governance, institutions and access’. The overall aim of the project is to generate new insights into the challenges of ensuring access to water by combining social and physical science analyses of water governance, water resources and infrastructure.
The post-holder will undertake original research, undertake research management and will interact with international development policy and practice communities. He/she will support Frances Cleaver in providing leadership for the social science team within the project consortium. The researcher will be responsible for much of the detailed design of methods, the coordination and execution of the social science fieldwork in the three countries, working closely with Cleaver and in collaboration with project partners.
The post-holder will further synergies with other ongoing and new water governance research at KCL and will contribute to building King’s Water as a hub for interdisciplinary research on water

Details:
The successful candidate will have a PhD in a relevant social science discipline and experience of undertaking field based research. The researcher will be able to design and deploy mixed research methods to generate insights into the functionality of institutions and water governance arrangements over a range of scales from the community borehole to the wider political economy. The post holder will lead the day-to-day management of the KCL inputs to the project including liaison and coordination with other project partners in the UK and internationally, overseeing design and implementation. The researcher will undertake two major periods of field work (equivalent to 2/3 months duration) in three African countries with in-country researchers and project partners. He or she will be expected to play a significant role in data analysis, writing up and dissemination of the research. This research links to other research on water governance, on institutional arrangements and rural development currently being conducted at Kings by Frances Cleaver, King’s Water, and a growing group of doctoral and post doctoral researchers. The post-holder will be expected to contribute to the development of this research community.

Post duration:
Fixed-term contract for 3 years.

Salary:
The appointment will be made, dependent on relevant qualifications and experience, within the Grade 6 scale, currently £32,277 to £38,511 per annum, plus £2,323 London Allowance per annum.

Contact Information:
To apply for this post you will need to register with the university’s recruitment system HireWire to download and submit the application form. Please note, should you wish to submit a CV or a short statement you will need to copy & paste these after the application form as part of the same document, as the system only allows you to submit one document. Please also note, once submitted, your application cannot be edited.
Interviews will be held on 7 July 2015.

Equality of opportunity is College policy

Closing date: 29 June 2015

For more information and to apply, please see:
https://www.hirewire.co.uk/HE/1061247/MS_JobDetails.aspx?JobID=62775
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ALJ312/upgro-research-associate/