About

The 4 Day Week Foundation are the UK's national campaigning organisation for a four-day week. They are independent, non-partisan and are campaigning across the UK for a four-day, 32 hour working week with no loss of pay for workers.

This is an exciting role with one of the UK’s most prominent campaigns at an important time for the four-day week movement. Over 200 companies in the UK, which includes over 5,000 workers, have permanently adopted a reduced hours four-day week with no loss of pay for employees, with the vast majority reducing working hours to 32 hours a week or less.

You will be part of a volunteer-led organisation with a small staff team punching above its weight in terms of impact. You will be supported in this role and line-managed by our Campaign Director.

Placement information

The student placement will support the development, coordination, and implementation of strategies and projects that further the objectives of the 4 Day Week Foundation. The role will involve a combination of research, project management and communication tasks to help push forward the campaign’s mission to promote the adoption of a four-day working week across the UK.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Programme and Event Support:
   • Support the planning, organising, and execution of a national programme of 4 Day Week Employer events.
   • Coordinate logistics, communications, and stakeholder engagement to ensure smooth event delivery.

2. Research
   • Lead on research into our priority business sectors for implementation: education, local government, technology and manufacturing

3. Project Support:
   • Take on project management responsibilities for assigned tasks, working alongside colleagues in the campaign team to ensure successful delivery.

4. Collaboration with Trade Unions:
   • Working alongside our lead organiser, you will partner with the Trade Union movement to promote and support the introduction of a four-day week in workplaces across the country.

• Assist with any union-related initiatives, outreach, and planning.

5. Communication and Advocacy:
   • Support with drafting and distributing our monthly newsletter to campaign supporters, highlighting key developments, events, and initiatives.
   • Coordinate monthly volunteer meetings and assist with the organisation of the annual AGM.
   • Lead on drafting op-eds, articles, and other written materials when appropriate to promote campaign messages.

6. Building Partnerships:
   • Work on identifying and establishing relationships with new organisations, potential collaborators, and allies who can support the campaign.
   • Help create and maintain strong partnerships with relevant stakeholders in the campaign’s ecosystem.

Benefits of Placement:

• Gain experience in campaign management and political advocacy.
• Develop skills in event management, research, and stakeholder engagement.
• Contribute to a high-profile national and international campaign for workplace reform.
• Build valuable connections with campaigners, policymakers, and organisations in the field.

Working arrangements

Remote

4 Day Week Foundation will make reasonable adjustments and provisions for applicants with declared disabilities. Please do let us know if you have any accessibility requirements for the recruitment/planning process.

How to apply

Please submit a short bio (approx 200 words) to introduce yourself to Joe Ryle, Campaign Director [email protected]
This should include your research area, key skills you offer, or wish to develop (e.g. qualitative, data analysis, policy work), any relevant experience beyond your PhD, and the type of work or impact you’re interested in exploring through a placement.

Please use the email subject line: “PhD Research Placement enquiry - [Host Organisation name]”.

About

AMOSSHE The Student Services Organisation is a not-for-profit professional membership association for Student Services leaders in higher education. Our mission is to support, inform and empower our community of Student Services leaders to enhance the higher education student experience and help students fulfil their potential. We do this through collaboration and networking, sharing good practice, enhancing professional development and influencing policy and investment. Find out more about our organisation here.

We’re committed to championing equality, diversity, and inclusion, and aspire to have a diverse and inclusive workplace. We strongly encourage suitably qualified applicants from a wide range of backgrounds to apply and join AMOSSHE. Find out more about our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion here.

Working arrangements

Hybrid, with a central London office.

AMOSSHE will make reasonable adjustments and provisions for applicants with declared disabilities. Please do let us know if you have any accessibility requirements for the recruitment/planning process.

How to apply

About

Exploring New Ways of Creating, Communicating and Sharing Knowledge
The Creative Impact Lab is a collaborative space supporting innovative approaches to research, impact, engagement, and knowledge exchange.
We work with researchers, students, communities, artists, policymakers, and practitioners to develop creative methods and outputs that enhance the reach, accessibility, and impact of research.
Through placements, postgraduate researchers have the opportunity to contribute to real projects while developing valuable skills in creative research practice, public engagement, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

The Lab provides a space for experimentation, collaboration, and professional development, supporting researchers in:

•Creative research methods
•Public and community engagement
•Research impact development
•Arts-science collaborations
•Exhibition and curation projects
•Digital storytelling and multimedia
•Creative mapping and visualisation
•Participatory and co-produced research
•Innovative communication of research findings

Placement information

Working arrangements

Location/working pattern/

How to apply

Please submit a short bio (approx 200 words) to introduce yourself to Danai-Maria Kontou [email protected]

This should include your research area, key skills you offer, or wish to develop (e.g. qualitative, data analysis, policy work), any relevant experience beyond your PhD, and the type of work or impact you’re interested in exploring through a placement.

Please use the email subject line: “PhD Research Placement enquiry - [Host Organisation name]”.

About

The Design Feminisms Research Group is an inclusive feminist research group at Northumbria University’s School of Design. We explore meanings and implications of ‘feminisms’ in design, and how this political orientation and theoretical framework impacts our research, teaching, and practice.

Our group is inclusive of people of all genders who do research around, are exploring, or are interested in learning more about feminisms and how this theory and lens relates to design. We appreciate that the term ‘feminism’ means many things to many people, and it is part of our mission to hold some of those tensions and explore our own positionalities towards this term. While defining the term is not a straightforward thing, we do have some non-negotiable concerns: our group is explicitly trans-inclusive, anti-racist, and pluriversal.

The word ‘feminism’ comes from women’s liberation movements, but since then has expanded to address wider issues of inequity, of exclusion and inclusion; notions of embedded care and ethics in research processes; explorations of liberatory practices. This is why our group uses the pluralist ‘feminisms’ – to highlight the plurality of this theory, methodology, and politic. What this means in practice, is that we embed our feminist values we have as people and as design researchers and that we work towards more equitable partnerships and relationships in our research. We value each person who contributes to a project for their unique knowledge, and actively encourage more diverse people to participate. We are building a community to actively grow solidarity and a community of support for those interested in exploring this identity.

We work collaboratively with academic and non-academic partners in socially-engaged and contested research spaces to produce both knowledge and action. This is informed by our explicit political commitments to equity, class struggle, decolonial, and anti-racism work, as well as our participatory, collaborative, and critical research approaches. We work with people, communities, and topics that are made vulnerable or marginal and problematise institutional responses to these marginalizations through design-led approaches.

Ultimately, we think with and through design to understand and build pluralist socially just futures, starting from the margins. We do this by generating impactful research and building an inclusive, interdisciplinary, and welcoming community for diverse researchers across disciplines at Northumbria’s School of Design.

Working arrangements

Hybrid or on-site at Design Feminisms Research Group studio, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne

DFRG will make reasonable adjustments and provisions for applicants with declared disabilities. Please do let us know if you have any accessibility requirements for the recruitment/planning process.

How to apply

About

Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC) Newcastle is a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) initiative hosted by Newcastle City Council, working in partnership with Newcastle University to reduce health inequalities across the city. As one of 30 HDRCs nationally, we aim to strengthen the Council’s ability to use and generate high quality research that informs robust, evidence‑based decision making and delivers meaningful improvements to people’s lives.

Our work focuses on the wider social determinants of health, including employment, education and housing, recognising the critical role these factors play in shaping health and wellbeing beyond healthcare services alone. We welcome collaboration across our Areas of Research Interest (ARIs) and offer a range of opportunities for engagement, including but not limited to student placements.

By working closely with local authority colleagues, we provide a unique, practice‑focused research environment where projects are grounded in real‑world policy and priorities, ensuring outputs are relevant, timely, and impactful for Newcastle’s communities.

Placement information

Overview

This placement offers an opportunity to work within HDRC Newcastle with a focus on selecting or shaping a short research project aligned to a locally identified priority topic where evidence is needed to inform decision making.

Depending on the chosen focus area, placement students may undertake:

• Evidence synthesis (e.g. literature reviews)
• Evaluation reports
• Data analysis (quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods)
• Preparing and delivering presentations to stakeholders
• Engagement with VCSE organisations and communities
• Supporting knowledge mobilisation

Host

The placement will be based within the multidisciplinary HDRC team which includes expertise in data and analytics (including AI and data science), governance and organisational culture and public involvement and community engagement. The project will also involve collaboration with staff in the wider Council, depending on the focus area identified.

Experience

Students will gain experience in applying research to real-world policy and service challenges within the context of local authority decision-making frameworks. Being based in the HDRC also offers opportunities to connect with the national HDRC network as well as other local authorities and research infrastructure organisations.

This placement will be particularly valuable for those interested in careers in policy, local government, applied research, or knowledge mobilisation, offering insight into how evidence is used in complex decision-making environments.

Working arrangements

Hybrid, with a Newcastle upon Tyne city centre office.

Newcastle HDRC will make reasonable adjustments and provisions for applicants with declared disabilities. Please do let us know if you have any accessibility requirements for the recruitment/planning process.

How to apply

Please submit a short bio (approx. 200 words) to introduce yourself to [email protected]

This should include your research area, key skills you offer, or wish to develop (e.g. qualitative, data analysis, policy work), any relevant experience beyond your PhD, and the type of work or impact you’re interested in exploring through a placement.

Please also include links to the specific ARI/s that you may be interested in exploring.

Please use the email subject line: “PhD Research Placement enquiry - [Host Organisation name]”.

Interested applicants will be invited to an informal online conversation with relevant members of HDRC Newcastle/Newcastle City Council teams, depending on the focus area identified.

About

The International Centre for Life (Life) is a dynamic science hub in the heart of Newcastle upon Tyne where scientists, clinicians, technologists and educationalists work side-by-side on one site. 

Opening in 2000, Life is a unique concept and business model, unlike anything else in the world. 

The NHS and Newcastle University are key partners onsite; the pioneering research and patient treatments carried out here have earned international recognition and are helping people live better lives. 

Placement information

Details of prospective placement activity will follow shortly

Working arrangements

Life will make reasonable adjustments and provisions for applicants with declared disabilities. Please do let us know if you have any accessibility requirements for the recruitment/planning process.

How to apply

Please submit a short bio (approx 200 words) to introduce yourself.
This should include your research area, key skills you offer, or wish to develop (e.g. qualitative, data analysis, policy work), any relevant experience beyond your PhD, and the type of work or impact you’re interested in exploring through a placement.

Please use the email subject line: “PhD Research Placement enquiry - [Host Organisation name]”.

About

Into the Light / Durham University (Evaluation & Research Partner)
Into the Light is a county‑wide place‑based creative collaboration delivered by ten cultural partners across County Durham. It aims to cultivate talent, widen access to creative education, develop the cultural workforce, and connect communities through culture. Durham University is the programme’s Evaluation & Research Partner, supporting research, micro‑evaluations and knowledge mobilisation across programme strands (Grow, Cultivate, Engage).

Placement information

A research in practice placement would contributes directly to the strand‑level “micro‑evaluations” that underpin the cumulative learning of Into the Light’s evaluation work, and support Into the Light’s ambition to turn research and evaluation findings into meaningful policy insights.

Placements support meaningful research activity within one project area (e.g., PLACE Lab, Ensemble ’84, Durham Creative & Cultural Skills Hub, Light Years, PULSE, Cultivate Commissions or Future Skills).
Because each strand presents distinct research or policy opportunities, the opportunity is purposefully flexible. The exact focus and methods will be shaped collaboratively with the PGR to align with their skills, disciplinary background, and research interests.

A Research Assistant would generate high‑quality mixed‑methods evidence that enables Into the Light to understand and demonstrate impact, inform future programming, and share learning with partners and policy stakeholders.

Specific duties will be agreed with the PGR, but may include:

• Co‑designing an appropriate micro‑evaluation plan for a chosen strand.
• Developing data collection tools (e.g., short surveys, interviews, observation templates).
• Conducting fieldwork such as observing workshops, attending performances, visiting community sites, or gathering participant feedback.
• Analysing qualitative and/or quantitative data and synthesising findings.
• Preparing a clear, well‑structured micro‑evaluation report.
• Creating short, accessible outputs for public use (e.g., infographic, blog, social cards).
• Liaising with delivery partners to ensure evaluation activity is ethical, proportionate, and community‑sensitive.

A Policy Assistant would translate evidence emerging from micro‑evaluations and strand‑level activity into concise, accessible policy outputs that can influence local stakeholders (e.g., Durham County Council, education partners, cultural workforce organisations). The work strengthens knowledge mobilisation across the Into the Light partnership and contributes directly to the wider evaluation programme.

Example activity could include:

• Conduct rapid evidence scans around creative place partnerships, cultural education, skills pipelines and participatory arts impacts.
• Synthesise micro‑evaluation data from ongoing strands (e.g., PLACE Lab, Ensemble ’84, Skills Hub).
• Undertake light-touch stakeholder interviews or spotlight conversations with delivery partners and policy‑adjacent organisations.
• Produce policy‑facing outputs including policy briefs, a knowledge‑mobilisation toolkit, and a spotlight session deck.
• Liaise with DU Policy team / UPEN team to identify relevant training opportunities and integrate best practice into outputs.

Working arrangements

Full time or part time.
Hybrid.
Office location: Boldon House, Durham University

Fieldwork may involve in‑person visits to partner sites such as Weardale, Shildon, or Peterlee, depending on project focus.

Into The Light will make reasonable adjustments and provisions for applicants with declared disabilities. Please do let us know if you have any accessibility requirements for the recruitment/planning process.

How to apply

Please complete the Expression of Interest form here Into the Light: NINEDTP Placement Opportunity – Fill in form

Interested applicants will be invited to an informal online conversation with the Lead Evaluator, Dr Alison Whelan before a short online conversation with the Into the Light team.

About

Founded in 1788, the Linen Hall is the oldest Library in Belfast. It is also an archive and accredited museum. Renowned for its Irish and local studies collection, ranging from comprehensive holdings of early printed books, fantastic resources to support genealogy, strong Irish language and Ulster-Scots collections, and an expansive Theatre and Performing Arts Archive; unique collections by and for the community in a shared space. The Linen Hall’s history and collections is intrinsically linked to the story of Belfast and has a pivotal role to play in understanding all of Northern Ireland’s past.

The Political Collection at the Linen Hall began in 1968 with one civil rights leaflet, and today contains some 350,000 items. It is the definitive record of the Northern Ireland 'troubles' and beyond, charting from the emergence of the civil rights movement, through the peace process to our post conflict society. It is a living collection which we add to by acquisition and donation. Encompassing political and social and economic history, it elucidates the lived experience and is authentically the people’s history. Given the Linen Hall’s independence and ability to collect ‘without fear or favour’, the collection encompasses all shades of opinion and contains material from all perspectives. There is no bias, judgement or censorship. As material was collected contemporaneously, the collection contains a significant number of items which exist in no other collections. The collection underpins our exemplary community engagement (recently, Years of Chaos and Hope; Origins and Legacies of B/GFA; Changemakers), and attracts visitors, students and academics from around the world.

Placement information

We are seeking expressions of interest for internships to undertake detailed research of aspects of the Northern Ireland Political Collection which match your research interests.  Internships allow for the gaining of insight into working with rare and unique primary sources and develop skills in the collection, handling and recording of archives. In addition to your research outputs, the internship can include outputs such as community engagement; online exhibitions; blog posts; podcasts; and oral histories etc. Currently, we are particularly interested in research around civil rights.

Working arrangements

Length of placement and start date negotiable, full time or part time hours considered.

Library location: Linen Hall Library, 17 Donegall Square North, Belfast, BT1 5GB

Linen Hall will make reasonable adjustments and provisions for applicants with declared disabilities. Please do let us know if you have any accessibility requirements for the recruitment/planning process.

How to apply

Please submit a short bio (approx. 200 words) to introduce yourself to Monica Cash, Deputy Librarian - [email protected] – mark your email F.A.O Monica Cash