Job Description
Policy Exchange is seeking a full-time Research Fellow to join our award-winning Energy & Environment Unit.
Energy security and climate change will be top tier political issues in the lead-up to the next election, and likely to be major political flashpoints for whichever party is in power after the vote. As both major parties look to develop thinking in these areas, there will be a demand for robust, evidence-driven policy analysis that can feed into manifestos and the programme for a future Government.
This position will provide an opportunity to do just that, focusing on the critical subject of energy security – both at the national level, in terms of security of supply, and at the household level, where the price of energy is increasingly salient. You will be expected to cover issues including: energy security, including its impact on the country’s national security; geopolitics of energy; consumer costs and energy bills; innovation and energy technologies; energy and environmental tax and spend policy; energy market reform.
This is an excellent opportunity to develop your career in energy policy with a highly talented team within the UK’s most influential think tank. Policy Exchange’s proposals regularly become government policy and our alumni often move into senior political roles, from the Prime Minister, Ministers and many MPs, to special advisers and civil servants.
Start date: immediate
Pay: depending on experience
Location: office-based
Job role:
- Conducting in-depth research into Energy Security policy focused on Great Britain but within a global context and with an eye to the UK’s international position.
- Presenting your research in coherent, well-argued, and detailed reports.
- Writing in other formats, including opinion articles for high-profile national media. Policy Exchange’s work has appeared in most mainstream media in the UK, as well as many international titles.
- Helping to organise events hosted at Policy Exchange and the Party Conferences.
- Presenting your ideas in different formats to a range of audiences including Ministers and MPs, civil servants, journalists, academics, policy experts and your colleagues.
- Working with a senior team of UK and international policy experts, taking an active role in proposing ideas for research projects, articles, and other opportunities.
- You may also be asked to collaborate with other members of our research team on projects that overlap with their fields of research, including environment and natural resources, finance, trade, economics, planning, etc.
- Actively supporting and initiating fundraising.
- Taking an active role in networking with stakeholders in politics, policy development, academia, business and beyond.
Ideal candidate:
We’re looking for people who bring new perspectives and ideas to our work, so we’re actively seeking applicants from all backgrounds and experience. The following description outlines someone who is a generalist within the Energy policy space. However, we’re also interested in people who can bring a whole new dimension to our work, such as through a specialism in a particular area (see below). If that’s you, please do get in touch.
- Career so far: You’ll have at least 1-5 years’ experience in the working world, with very clear evidence of your interest in public policy and politics, demonstrated through work to date, academia and/or other activities.
- Academic: You’ll have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and will have demonstrated your interest and experience in energy policy either through your degree or through the expertise you may have developed through your career so far.
- Writing: You must be excellent at writing, meaning that you can:
- Explain complicated concepts and ideas clearly
- Make a persuasive and well-structured argument
- Adapt to different writing styles required for different contexts. For example, you’ll be expected to write research reports, press releases, policy briefings for MPs, articles for publication in news media, internal documents such as updates for our trustees, among others
- Creativity/innovative approach: You must have the creativity to formulate new ideas and solutions independently, and to scour international contexts for successful examples that could be used in the UK.
- Intellectual dexterity: You’ll need to be able to work on different subjects within the Energy brief. However, you’ll also need to work with other units at Policy Exchange, covering broad topics such as Economics, Trade, Security, Health and Social Care, and Planning policy, in so far as they touch on your own area of research.
- Philosophy: Our staff at all levels have different philosophical and political views, but they’re familiar and comfortable with the broad mission of Policy Exchange, which is to seek market-based and localist solutions to public policy questions. You should be too, so please take some time to review our body of work, in Energy & Environment and across our other units.
- Desirable: We’re keen to hear from someone with expertise (or interest in developing expertise) in any of the following areas:
- Energy security
- Energy market reform
- Natural resources and critical minerals
- Data and the ability to process / present information in novel ways.
- Fundraising: You’ll be confident drawing up research proposals and presenting them to prospective funders.
To apply
Please send a copy of your CV and a recent sample of relevant written work to sharon.lea@policyexchange.org.uk.
We will begin interviewing and make an appointment as soon as we start receiving applications, so please apply immediately and no later than 24 November 2023.
We welcome applications from all sections of the community. We value diversity and appoint on merit.