Cutting-edge research in interdisciplinary political science increasingly employs technologically sophisticated methods to analyse multiple sources of large-scale data. You will exploit the growing availability of open-source data to study trends in socio-economic context, consumption and values and their effects on political behaviour, using advanced data collection, analysis and visualisation techniques. Such core substantive interests will form the basis for bids as a PI, leading to a £500k+ core project bid to a major funding body, as well as cross-Faculty collaboration on a Horizon 2020 bid.
You will play a key role alongside and in collaboration with colleagues in the School of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) with quantitative expertise and interests. You will be well positioned to link between POLIS and the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics. You will also have the potential to work with the School of Geography and the Centre for Spatial Analysis and Policy, which contains a number of researchers with interests in political behaviour and spatial analytics, as well as the ESRC TALISMAN node.
There is also scope for links with the School of Media and Communication, on social media analytics, and the School of Computing, on data visualisation. In POLIS’s teaching portfolio, you will contribute to core provision in analytical skills development for both UGs and PGs, including core methods at level 2, and the introduction of appropriate tools for empirical research beyond basic statistical knowledge – programming environments, GIS, social media analytics, etc.
With expertise in social science informatics and a substantive focus on political behaviour, you will have, as essential: (1) strong expertise in Python, webscraping, social media analytics; (2) expertise in applied social science informatics, e.g. GIS, network analysis; (3) expertise in statistical methods (Stata and/or R); (4) at least two lead-authored papers in international peer-reviewed journals, preferably cross-disciplinary; (5) evidence of having secured pilot funding or a small research grant.
University Grade 8 (£38,511 to £45,954)
For informal enquiries about the role please contact Professor Jocelyn Evans, tel: +44 (0)113 343 3681, email: J.A.J.Evans@leeds.ac.uk.
Ref: ESLPO1000