Director of Research and Relationships

Role purpose
This is a key role in a small and ambitious think-tank which has established a significant track record and reputation for thought leadership on understanding attitudes, forging effective narratives and promoting constructive policy solutions on issues of immigration and integration, race and identity in Britain today.

The post-holder will lead British Future’s research and policy strategy, in order to maximise the organisation’s constructive impact on these often polarising debates, to help to realise our vision of a confident and inclusive Britain, welcoming and fair to all.

The post-holder will play a key role in generating new income through research projects and effective partnerships, as part of an organisational strategy to diversify our funding base for sustainability and future growth. 

The post-holder will develop and execute a work programme to make significant and timely interventions that can reframe public debates on these issues. They will also build effective partnerships across civic society, economic and political actors to embed narratives and policy approaches which are principled, practical and capable of securing public consent.

Role description

• Shaping British Future’s public agenda on themes of immigration and integration, race and identity issues, with a focus on conceiving, resourcing and delivering major policy and research projects capable of having a significant long-term impact.
• To play a lead role in managing and extending the economic, political and civic relationships necessary to maximise the impact of British Future’s contributions to public debates including developing new and unusual alliances.
• To generate income which can resource and expand our programme of work, including from trusts and foundations, corporations and other relevant sources, ensuring strategic priorities for future research and relationships can be aligned to potential sources of funding and resources.
• To make significant direct contributions to the public-facing and stakeholder-facing outputs of the organisation as relevant through articles & blogs, speaking engagements and media interviews, etc.
• To work with relevant stakeholders to develop and update the evidence base for British Future’s work, to ensure our work continues to understand the drivers of public attitudes in our priority areas, and that it can engage public audiences constructively and effectively.

This job description is not exhaustive and serves only to highlight the main requirements of the post- holder. Other reasonable requirements may be stipulated by the Director. The job description will be reviewed regularly and may be subject to change.

Person specification

The ideal candidate will:

• Have at least 3-5 years experience relevant to this role
• Have a strong understanding of how to influence public debate and policy effectively, whether in migration, integration, race and identity, or by demonstrating the relevance of comparable experience in other areas.
• Have significant experience of building sustained relationships with high-level stakeholders, in business, politics or civic society.
• Have experience of generating income in a relevant or comparable setting.
• Have strong public-facing research and writing skills.
• Be entrepreneurial – with the ability to inspire and motivate alliances and partnerships, including engaging ‘unusual’ suspects with broad reach, and the ability to demonstrate a practical record of doing this (either on similar issues, or in a different area).
• Have financial acumen – and experience of managing budgets and projects.
• Be highly organised – being able to plan, prioritise and deliver to tight timescales, and to manage both strategic and reactive projects effectively.
• Have a high degree of IT competence. (This will be a self-servicing role).
• Understanding of and commitment to the values of British Future

Conditions
 The organisation’s salary band for this role is £40,000 to £50,000 pa. The remuneration package includes a contribution towards a personal pension plan of up to 10% of gross salary, based on double-matching employee contributions.
 

Our standard office hours are 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday, though a willingness to work flexibly and out-of-hours is part of the job. The role involves occasional weekend/evening commitments, for which time in lieu is given. Three months termination of contract is required on either side, except during the initial probationary period of six months. 

British Future is an equal opportunities employer and we strongly encourage applicants from all backgrounds. We believe that diversity and inclusion among our team is critical to our success. We seek to recruit, develop and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool and welcome applications from all qualified candidates. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, social class, colour, religion, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity.

The organisation is based in central London, near Covent Garden. The team is currently working remotely from home during the Covid pandemic. As an organisation, we seek to be supportive of flexible working in principle and practice, and are happy to discuss this with candidates.

How to Apply

To apply for the role of Director of Research and Relationships, please submit the following materials.

• An application letter, addressing the person specification. Please also state current salary and notice period, and please indicate your potential availability for interview on March 10^th and 11^th 2021, or alternate dates in that week and the following week if unavailable on those days. (Interviews will take place remotely, via Zoom).
• An up-to-date CV, including two referees
• As part of your application, within one or two sides of A4, please identify up to three key priorities for work by British Future in 2021-22 – outlining work that you believe the organisation could seek to undertake, including some indication of how you might resource that work.
• Interviews will be recorded & stored securely during the recruitment process, then destroyed once no longer necessary. For further details on what data we use and how it is kept, please see our Recruitment GDPR policy included in the pack.
   

The closing date for applications is 28^th February 2021

Please email the relevant materials to Louise Hickmott at louise@britishfuture.org

About British Future
British Future is an independent, non-partisan think-tank which has charitable status. Our vision is of a confident and inclusive Britain, welcoming and fair to all. We seek to contribute to this by engaging audiences who are anxious, rather than confident, about Britain today, engaging their hopes and fears about immigration and integration, race and identity, in order to strengthen the common ground.

Founded in 2012, British Future has established a significant reputation as a constructive thought leadership voice on immigration and identity issues, with expertise in public attitudes, effective public narratives and messages; and promoting constructive policy solutions which are principled, workable and capable of securing broad public consent.

The organisation has a small staff team of six people – and so extends its influence by forging strategic partnerships and relationships, including with public voices in politics, the economy, civic society, faith and culture and the media who have significant reach in shaping public narratives on identity issues.

Major projects have included “How to Talk About Immigration” (2014); the National Conversation on Immigration (2018); the independent inquiry on citizenship, led by Alberto Costa MP (2020), and the Talk Together public engagement exercise for the Together coalition - the largest-ever public engagement exercise on social connection, involving over 160,000 people – which will report shortly in Spring 2021. British Future is a founding member of the Together Coalition, forms the secretariat for the APPG on Social Integration, and partners the Royal British Legion on the Remember Together campaign, to make Remembrance more inclusive.

British Future has a policy of funding transparency, and declares all major sources of funding. The organisation was founded with the sustained support of several major trusts and foundations in the Migration Exchange network. Major funders have included the Barrow Cadbury Trust; Trust for London; Unbound Philanthropy; the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Sigrid Rausing Trust, among others.