Senior Research Associate

About the Blavatnik School of Government

Our vision is of a world better led, a world better served and a world better governed. We are a global school committed to improving the quality of government and public policymaking worldwide, through three routes: teaching current and future leaders; generating research with impact; and engaging with governments and practitioners.

What we offer

The School is a collaborative, friendly, and dynamic department based in an award-winning building in Oxford. We host regular events and talks with well-known guest speakers – all of which are open to staff. On the social side, we have regular coffee/cake mornings for staff, a family-friendly Halloween event, and Christmas and summer parties.

As an employer, we genuinely care about our employees’ wellbeing and this is reflected in the range of benefits that we offer including:

• An excellent contributory pension scheme
• 38 days’ annual leave
• Family leave schemes and a comprehensive range of childcare services
• Cycle loan scheme and discounted bus travel and Season Ticket travel loans
• Membership to a variety of social and sports clubs
• Opportunities for remote working (typically 60% of working hours on-site and 40% remotely)

More information about working at the School can be found on our jobs page.

About the role

The Oxford Programme for Cyber and Technology Policy (OxCTP) is seeking to recruit a variable hours Senior Research Associate to support the programme.

You will contribute to the following project:

• Child Online Safety: Coordinating a newly-launched 18-month research initiative, in partnership with the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), to identify and track replicable international policies for protecting children online, supported by the MacArthur Foundation.

Reporting to the Co-Directors of OxCTP, including Professor Ciaran Martin and Dr. Brianna Rosen, you will translate multidisciplinary research into actionable insights for governments in collaboration with OxCTP team members and affiliates.

You will independently conduct substantive research tasks, including data collection, analysis, and structured interviews, and draft material to help develop a pilot policy tracker for online child safety, modelled on the School’s successful COVID-19 tracker. You will also provide guidance to junior members of the research group, including research assistants, PhD students, and/or project volunteers.

This post is fixed-term until 31 March 2027, and on a variable hours basis (between 20 and 30 hours per week).

About you

You must hold a postgraduate degree, together with significant relevant work experience and sufficient specialist knowledge in the discipline. You should have a demonstrated interest or experience in digital policy and regulation, specifically regarding child online safety or public sector preparedness; a demonstrated record of advising non-technical stakeholders on technical topics; and previous experience of contributing to publications/presentations.

The ability to conduct postgraduate-level research in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Information Security, Information Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a related field, and the ability to distil technical concepts into academic and/or policy writing are also essential.

Application process

Please upload a supporting statement that outlines how you meet the selection criteria in your own words, along with your CV and the details of two referees as part of your online application.

The closing date for applications is at 12 noon (UK Time) on Friday 24 April 2026.