Job Description

About us
The brings together cutting-edge academic theory with teaching and policy practice, to rethink the role of the state in tackling some of the biggest challenges facing society.
IIPP works with partners to develop a framework which challenges traditional economic thinking, with the goal of creating, nurturing and evaluating public value in order to achieve growth that is more innovation-led, inclusive and sustainable. This requires rethinking the underlying economics that have informed the education of global public servants and the design of government policies.
IIPP's work feeds into innovation and industrial policy, financial reform, institutional change and sustainable development. A key pillar of IIPP's research is its understanding of markets as outcomes of the interactions between different actors. In this context, public policy should not be seen as simply fixing market failures, but also as actively shaping and co-creating markets. Re-focusing and designing public organisations around mission-led, public purpose aims will help tackle the grand challenges facing the 21st century.
IIPP is uniquely structured to ensure that this groundbreaking academic research is harnessed to tackle real world policy challenges. IIPP does this through its high-quality teaching programme, along with its growing global network of partners, and the ambitious policy practice programme.
IIPP is a department within UCL - and part of The Bartlett, ranking number one in the world for architecture and the built environment in the world.
About the role
The Research Fellow in Computational Public Policy will support the next phase of the Public Sector Capabilities Index, working under the strategic direction of senior colleagues to operationalise a robust, scalable methodology. The role's purpose is to assist in refining research instruments, integrating diverse data sources, and contributing to the development of digital tools that enable benchmarking and insight for cities, funders, and researchers. The role holder will source, collate, and analyse large volumes of textual data (e.g. legislation and regulation, council and committee minutes, policy/strategy documents, consultations, programme evaluations and performance reports, government websites, contracts and requests for proposals) to build and validate text-as-data pipelines to assess how city government officials use language across contexts, design and run simulations (e.g. agent-based, microsimulation, AI agent based) that can link language, dynamic capabilities, organisational routines, evidence, and outcomes in city governments, and provide support to the Public Sector Capabilities Index data team as needed.
About you
You will combine strong analytical skills with a curiosity about how city governments operate and use language. You will be comfortable working across the full data lifecycle--scoping and cleaning diverse public-sector corpora, designing end-to-end NLP and machine-learning pipelines, and building simulation or agent-based models to explore organisational and policy scenarios. This role will refine data-collection protocols, maintaining high standards of data quality and governance, and ensuring consistency across different city contexts.
You will be comfortable translating technical outputs into clear, accessible insights for a wide range of audiences, from city officials to researchers and funders. The post holder will bring a collaborative mindset, working closely with colleagues to link data to conceptual development, policy implications, and future directions. The successful candidate will be organised, proactive, and ready to support project delivery by monitoring progress, improving tools and frameworks, and adapting to emerging needs.
What we offer
As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents, we also offer some great benefits, some of which are below:

• 41 Days holiday (27 days annual leave, 8 bank holidays and 6 closure days)
• Additional 5 days' annual leave purchase scheme
• Defined benefit career average revalued earnings pension scheme (CARE)
• Cycle to work scheme and season ticket loan
• Immigration loan
• Relocation scheme for certain posts
• Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay
• Employee assistance programme: Staff Support Service
• Discounted medical insurance

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Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
As London's Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world's talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong.
We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL's workforce.
These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; LGBTQI+ people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women.
Our Faculty holds an Athena SWAN Silver award, in recognition of our commitment and demonstrable impact in advancing gender equality.
You can read more about our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion here:
Available documents

Skills Required