PaCCS Placement: TISC Report

REFERENCE: PaCCS Placement (TISC Report).                   CLOSING DATE: 24 January 2020        

COMPENSATION: A Student Maintenance Grant of £3,550 is provided to cover the 3 months + eligible travel & accommodation costs incurred during the placement up to a limit of £2,400.

UKRI’s Partnership for Conflict, Crime & Security Research (PaCCS) is seeking a research student to undertake a placement, spending three months with TISC Report (the Transparency in Supply Chains Platform) to analyze data on global supply chains (held by / accessible to TISC Report) to identify and understand indicators of potential criminal activity (corruption, money laundering, bribery, modern slavery). This is a fixed term placement for 3 months between April and August 2020. 

This placement is part of the PaCCS programme Transnational Organised Crime: Deepening & Broadening Our Understanding. The successful candidate will report to Dr Tristram Riley-Smith (Associate Fellow at Cambridge’s Centre for Science & Policy and PaCCS Research Integrator) but will work very closely with TISC Report, having access to TISC’s offices in Bristol; a point-of-contact there will provide support and supervision. Much of the work can be conducted from the researcher’s home-base, but not all the data will be accessible remotely; the Placement will also be expected to travel to speak to stakeholders as and when required.

The job will initially entail discussions with relevant stakeholders; working through TISC’s Supply Chain Data; collating and analysing the results; drafting a report for TISC which can be shared with the PaCCS community and other interested parties. This report (written in a way that is easily understood by policy audiences) will be the key output of this placement and will be used by TISC and PaCCS to inform policy thinking and, if appropriate, future research calls in this area. There will be a requirement to present findings to TISC and this could extend to policy-makers and practitioners in Government and the Third Sector. The candidate will be required to work with the TISC team to support the planning of outputs following/surrounding the report’s publication.

Mandatory Competencies: the successful candidate will have strong academic grounding in either Arts, Humanities, Social or Behavioural Science, with demonstrable research interest of one or more of the PaCCS themes (Conflict, Crime and Security). The candidate will have strong analytical, oral and written communication skills. The post is best-suited to those studying towards a PhD where the PaCCS funding (in the form of a Student Maintenance Grant) would allow – with the support of UKRI and the necessary approval of the researcher’s university – three months to be “taken out” to work on this placement. Those who are engaged in post-doctoral research are also eligible to apply. Exceptional candidates between a Master’s and a PhD will also be considered.

Desirable Competencies: it is very helpful if the successful candidate exhibits knowledge and understanding of at least some of the issues surrounding the exploitation of supply chains by Transnational Organised Crime groups. it is also desirable to be able to demonstrate evidence of team-working and a commitment to work across relevant disciplines. The candidate should also, ideally, be able to demonstrate an understanding of the link between research, policy and operations. 

To apply for this vacancy, please email tr356@cam.ac.uk by midnight on the Closing Date, providing a one-page cv and a covering letter describing:

1. your current research (150 words);
2. skills you can bring to this placement and your achievements to date of relevance to undertaking this work (200 words)
3. what you hope to gain from this placement? (150 words)

You can learn more about this placement and the organisations involved in the TISC Report placement here. 

Before any successful Placement commences, we will require the written approval of your University Supervisor and Research Office[1]. At this early stage, please confirm they have been consulted and agree in principle to this application. 

We value diversity and we are committed to equality of opportunity.

We have a responsibility to ensure that the grant-holders is eligible to live and work in the UK.

[1] UKRI guidance stipulates that:

• research students may undertake a work placement or internship where this is either directly related to the student’s training, or provides valuable transferable skills and, provided this is well justified and approved in advance by their Supervisor and Research Organisation;
• any existing studentship (linked to the person taking up the PaCCS Placement) will need to be suspended for the period of the Placement; the studentship will recommence once the Placement had ended, with the funding end date for the studentship being amended accordingly.