Policy Officer

Fixed-term contract, 13 months

Part-time, 22.5 hrs pw (0.6FTE), open to flexible working patterns

London/Home based

Are you a meticulous, organised and flexible individual with impressive copy editing and interpersonal skills? Looking for an exciting new challenge? If so, Nesta is looking for a Policy Officer to work in our Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC), where you will work on a project called 'Covid-19: Impacts on the cultural industries and implications for policy' in partnership with the Centre for Cultural Value.

About Nesta

Our vision is that by 2030, Nesta will have improved the lives of millions of people by designing, testing and scaling new solutions to society's biggest challenges.

We have chosen to focus on three guiding missions - equalising life chances, building healthier lives, and supporting a sustainable economic recovery. In each of these areas, we will partner with frontline organisations to generate and rigorously evaluate new interventions, and support their widespread adoption. We will support the creation of new products and ventures, and shape the system as a whole to support innovation.

Working with a range of delivery partners, we will deploy multi-disciplinary teams that bring together capabilities in design, data science, behavioural insights, experimental research, and arts and culture methods. We believe that by bringing together innovation methods to design, experiment, rigorously evaluate, and scale innovations, we can be a world leader in driving innovation for social good.

This 15-month research project, funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Covid rolling call and issued through the Arts and Humanities Research Council, will bring together the Centre for Cultural Value (CCV), the PEC and a national consortium of researchers and partners across the UK to explore the impacts of Covid-19 on the cultural sector and the implications for policy.

About this key role

Our Policy Officer will focus on mapping relevant policy stakeholders and distributing regular policy updates to the project consortium, plus communicating project outputs to external audiences. This will include crafting tweets and sourcing images for social media and the website, helping to edit and coordinate content for the website and disseminating research to key stakeholders, including policymakers and industry contacts. You will also:

• Organise events, including research panels and at least one policy networking event
• Work closely with the PEC's policy unit and the CCV to coordinate timings/delivery of project outputs
• Draw out key messages from research and turn them into policy briefings and blogs
• Edit the PEC's policy-focused project outputs and provide strategic editorial advice
• Respond proactively to government enquiries

What we are looking for

A strong copy editor, you must be comfortable reading and digesting academic research and have strong attention to detail. You will have a proven record of working in project coordination and with policymakers or in a research communications role and experience of writing meeting notes/minutes. The ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines, as well as both independently and in a team, is vital as is an organised, adaptable and professional approach to your work.

Closing date: 30 November 2020 at 8am.

At Nesta, we believe that a diverse workforce leads to an organisation that is more innovative, more creative and gets better results.

We want our workforce to represent the diversity of the people and communities we serve. We also want our workplace to be one where different experiences, expertise and perspectives are valued, and where everyone is encouraged to grow and develop.

This means that when we are recruiting, we actively seek to reach a diverse pool of candidates. It also means that we are happy to consider any reasonable adjustments that potential employees may need to in order to be successful.

We recognise the importance of a good balance between work and home life, so we do everything we can to accommodate flexible working, including working from home, compressed or part-time hours, job shares and other arrangements.

Please just let us know in your application or at any stage throughout the process (and beyond) if these are options you'd like to explore.