Research Assistants: Law that Shapes Us Articles
INTERNAL APPLICANTS ONLY
Deadline date: Friday 15 April 2022
The Dean of the Faculty of Law is looking to commission a minimum of three in-depth articles for the new Law Faculty website. This will be a fixed hours project for successful applicants.
The new Law Faculty website is scheduled to launch in September 2022. The site will not only refresh the current content and layout, but generate more frequent site traffic by providing access to new and engaging content that appeals to a wide audience. To achieve this one of the features of the site will be a series of deep dive articles under the banner of ‘Law that Shapes Us’. These articles should be written for a mass audience in plain English that articulate how a particular aspect of law is relevant to society today. These detailed articles are intended to appeal to a wide audience, including students, academics, alumni and benefactors (i.e. not just an academic audience).
The task for the successful applicant(s) is to choose a legal concept or theory, to explain it and to demonstrate its relevance to society today whilst communicating in non-technical language to ensure its appeal to a wide target audience without obviously ‘dumbing down’ the academic content. This could potentially be a new piece of content, or building on / repurposing an essay, thesis or blog post.
It is anticipated that each article will be 1,000 to 1,500 words, and the author will be credited for the article on the site.
Suggested themes might be Artificial Intelligence, Equality and Diversity, Border Criminology etc. Applicants are encouraged to suggest their own topics as part of their application.
Duration and hours
Maximum number of hours per article: 8 hours
Start date: as soon as possible.
Date by which the work must be completed: 31 May 2022.
Reporting
The Research Assistant will report to Charlotte Vinnicombe (Head of Finance and Administration), and liaise with Simon Taylor (Project Manager for the web site launch).
Selection criteria
- An excellent undergraduate degree in law is essential, a postgraduate qualification in law is highly desirable;
- Excellent communication skills are essential, with the ability to communicate complex legal concepts in plain English;
- Close attention to detail is essential;
- An understanding of comparative law methods is desirable
Eligibility
This position is open to current graduate research students in the Law Faculty and the hours are in line with the restrictions on working hours for students. It is expected that the work will be done remotely.
Rate of Pay
The work will be paid at the standard research assistant rate of £15.60 per hour (based on Grade 6 point 1) plus holiday pay of £2.67 per hour worked (= total of £18.27/hour).
Funding
This position is funded by the Dean’s Discretionary Fund.
How to Apply
A short CV and covering letter (including the name of your supervisor, if any) should be sent by email to recruitment@law.ox.ac.uk by Friday 15 April 2022. The covering letter should include a summary of your proposed ‘Law that Shapes Us’ topic(s), its relevance to the Faculty and an explanation of why you chose this particular topic.
Graduate students in the Faculty of Law may work up to 8 hours per week, or a common sense average across the year.
Work must not commence without a letter of engagement and a right to work check having been carried out.
Approval of the Associate Dean for Research Students is required for any graduate student to work for their supervisor.