The Alan Turing Institute is the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. The Institute is named in honour of the scientist Alan Turing and its mission is to make great leaps in data science and artificial intelligence research in order to change the world for the better.

AI FOR SCIENCE AND GOVERNMENT PROGRAMME

We are looking to recruit a Research Assistant to construct a database of public health indicators and government expenditure to support the development of economic policy prioritisation tools in the context of health disparities.

Internationally, health equity is one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and recently the World Health Organisation Health Equity programme developed a data platform to focus policy action across the European region on health equity. This programme demonstrated that up to 80% of the variation in health outcomes between groups is determined by social and wider determinants of health - areas which span across governmental departments and budgets. Some countries have started to explore governmental budgets better aligned to health, for example “wellbeing budgets” in New Zealand and Canada.

Within The Alan Turing Institute AI for Science and Government programme, ‘Shocks and Resilience’ project we are seeking to understand the impact of public spending on public health outcomes across countries and regions. This new programme will draw on the analytic framework of Policy Priority Inference, created at the Turing’s Public Policy Programme (https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/research-projects/policy-priority-inference).

ROLE PURPOSE

We are looking for an outstanding PhD student to join the team, with a strong background in data collection, pre-processing, and curation; and some experience in using natural language processing. Ideally, the candidate will have some knowledge on international public-health indicators and/or government expenditure data, and have a keen interest in health policy and equalities. Basic understanding of econometrics and network analysis is desirable.

This essential role will identify and collate international data sources for public health outcomes and governmental expenditure across different domains for health. These data could be constructed at the national level, and potentially for subnational entities of some countries if data were available. The successful candidate will be working closely with the Public Policy and Health and Medical Sciences programmes towards the development of economic policy prioritisation tools in the context of health disparities.

The successful candidate will report to Prof. Alisha Davies, AI for Science and Government Health Theme Lead, and will be supervised by Dr Daniele Guariso, Research Associate, as well as Dr Omar A Guerrero, Head of Computational Social Science Research. Informal enquiries can be directed to Prof. Alisha Davies ([email protected]).

DUTIES AND AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

• Identify and curate data sources that can be used to obtain indicators on public health outcomes across countries and regions.
• Identify and curate data sources that provide information on public expenditure across health dimensions or wellbeing in general across countries and regions.
• Create a linkage between the categories of the public health indicators and those from the public spending data.
• Validate such linkage and assemble a database.
• Contribute to and disseminate policy reports/research papers that detail research output and project case-studies.
• Become part of the broader research team and be expected to engage with the other researchers and/or the partners.

• Research Assistant level: Near completion of a PhD or equivalent level of professional qualification
• Solid experience in data collection using tools such as web scraping.
• Expertise using computational tools to clean and pre-process large datasets.
• Familiarity with natural language processing.
• Excellent writing skills and proven ability to communicate complex, specialist or conceptual information/research findings clearly and persuasively to diverse audiences, including the ability to explain technical concepts to technical and non-technical audiences.
• A proven ability to collaborate successfully in a multidisciplinary environment and to manage delivery of projects.
• Ability to organise working time, take the initiative, and carry out research independently, under the guidance of the PI
• Excellent writing skills and a proven ability to communicate research findings to diverse audiences.

Please see the job description for a full breakdown of the duties, responsibilities and person specification

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

If you are interested in this opportunity, please click the apply button below. You will need to register on the applicant portal and complete the application form including your CV and covering letter. If you have questions about the role or would like to apply using a different format, please contact us on 020 3970 2148 or 0203 862 3340, or email [email protected].

CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS: TUESDAY 13TH SEPTEMBER 2022 AT 23:59

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

This full time post is offered on a fixed term basis until 31st March 2023. The annual salary is £36,235 plus excellent benefits, including flexible working and family friendly policies, https://www.turing.ac.uk/work-turing/why-work-turing/employee-benefits

EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

The Alan Turing Institute is committed to creating an environment where diversity is valued and everyone is treated fairly. In accordance with the Equality Act, we welcome applications from anyone who meets the specific criteria of the post regardless of age, disability, ethnicity, gender reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

We are committed to building a diverse community and would like our leadership teal to reflect this. We therefore welcome applications from the broadest spectrum of backgrounds.

Reasonable adjustments to the interview process will be made for any candidates with a disability.

Please note all offers of employment are subject to obtaining and retaining the right to work in the UK and satisfactory pre-employment security screening which includes a DBS Check.

Full details on the pre-employment screening process can be requested from [email protected].

The Alan Turing Institute is based at the British Library, in the heart of London’s Knowledge Quarter.

From 01 March 2022 we will trial a Hybrid Working Model for an initial six-month trial period. During this period, staff will be expected to work at our British Library office for a number of days per month, dependent on the requirements of the role. As a guide, we anticipate this will be between 2-4 days per month, but the hiring manager will be able to confirm this during the interview.