Job Description

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 (typically60% 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 Blavatnik School of Government is seeking to recruit a Postdoctoral Research Fellow for its newly launched Oxford Programme for Cyber and Technology Policy (OxCTP).

Reporting to the Co-Directors of OxCTP, you will manage your own academic research activities and collaborate in the preparation of research publications on AI security. You will also prepare working theories and analyse data from a variety of sources, contribute ideas for new research projects, act as a source of information and advice, and represent the research group at external meetings/seminars.

This post is fixed-term for 6 months. We expect the successful candidate to be able to start as soon as possible and no later than 1 December 2025.

About you

You must hold (or be close to completion of) a relevant PhD/DPhil, together with relevant experience, and posses sufficient specialist knowledge in the discipline. You should be able to conduct postgraduate-level research in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Information Security, Information Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a related field, have experience with securing AI systems, ML model training, and model deployment, and demonstrated record of advising non-technical stakeholders on technical topics. Excellent communications skills, previous experience of contributing to publications/presentations, 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, two writing samples on AI security or cybersecurity, and the details of two referees as part of your online application.

The closing date for applications is

12 noon (UK time) on Tuesday 26 August 2025

. Interviews are expected to be held online (via MS Teams) on 15 September.