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, pro-rata Entitlement to University sick pay Travel/commuting discounts Membership to a variety of social and sports clubs Opportunities for hybrid working
More information about working at the School can be found on our jobs page.

About the role

The Blavatnik School of Government seeks to appoint a variable hours Research Assistant to support a research project on economic security, with a focus on China and public policy.

Reporting to Professor Yeling Tan, you will collect and organise data from public sources, surveys, and institutional datasets, in both Chinese and English language, conduct advanced text analysis using NLP techniques, and apply and fine-tune LLMs for automated text classification, topic modelling, and entity recognition. You will also assist with statistical and econometric modelling, with drafting research memos, summaries, presentations and reports, and support literature reviews and synthesis of existing research.

This post is fixed-term for 12 months, and on a variable hours basis up to 7 hours per week.

About you

You must hold a master's degree in a relevant discipline and possess sufficient specialist knowledge in the discipline. You should be proficient in Python or R with experience in data science libraries, advanced NLP and LLM techniques and expertise in network analysis and social network modeling, and have the ability to manage your own research and administrative activities. Excellent communication skills, experience of following and adapting methodologies, and proficiency in Mandarin Chinese and English 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 Monday 11 August 2025

. Interviews are expected to be held remotely (via MS Teams) on Tuesday 19 August.