Post Title: Ecosystems Evidence Specialist

Team: Ecosystems Analysis

Ref No: 202309

Grade: H (HEO)

Type of appointment: Permanent

Location: Peterborough or Aberdeen

Salary: £28,958                                     

This post will have a base in either Peterborough or Aberdeen.

JNCC has adopted a hybrid working approach, allowing colleagues to benefit from time in the office, with the flexibility also to work from home. Employees are expected to work from our office base for 1 – 2 days a month as a minimum, this will vary by team and the exact balance will depend on the nature of your role. We can provide more details at the interview and offer stages.

Who are JNCC?

Established in 1991, we’re the UK’s statutory advisor on issues affecting the natural environment across the UK and internationally. Our primary role is advising all four Governments of the UK. We also work with private sector organisations to support decision making on the sustainable use of marine waters and natural resources around the UK. JNCC is led by the Joint Committee, which brings together members from the nature conservation bodies for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and independent members appointed by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs under an independent Chair. Support is provided to the Committee by approx. 270 people who bring together scientific and technical expertise, extensive knowledge of policy at global, European and national levels, and skills in working with other organisations. Staff are based in two main offices in Peterborough and Aberdeen.

Why JNCC?

We’re small enough (c.270 staff) that your voice is heard by everyone including the CEO, but big enough that we have all the skills, resources and people you’ll need to get the job done. All our staff are passionate about conservation and making a difference to the world we live in. We have a very flexible, inclusive and welcoming organisational culture. Our Executive Management provides employees with the freedom and tools you will need, and our friendly team will assist you in your role.

Our vision is thriving nature for a sustainable future. Our strategic priorities from 2023 to 2030 are:

·       Use our scientific expertise to facilitate a collective response to the global biodiversity crisis.

·       Use our trusted expertise and judgement, advising on the effectiveness of existing policies, and on the design of new policies and action, to underpin progress towards nature recovery

·       Lead the discussion to align action for nature and climate change, to deliver outcomes that tackle the climate breakdown and accelerate nature recovery.

·       Continue to innovate and advance our learning on nature recovery, so that science, technology, and new digital knowledge is applied to tackle ecological collapse.

·       Work collaboratively to support the transition to a sustainable blue/green economy, linking nature recovery to societal prosperity and wellbeing.

·       Seek opportunities to integrate the value of nature into decision-making, mainstreaming nature recovery into other policy areas.

·       Invest in our people and culture to ensure a motivated, inclusive, and learning organisation, where staff wellbeing is prioritised, and our partners are engaged and respected.

JNCC is committed to maintaining employee health and wellbeing, whether it is physically, emotionally, financially or socially, and offers a range of benefits to support employees in this. Such benefits include the option to join the Civil Service Pension Scheme, professional and personal development opportunities as well as an exciting job in a unique environment. 

Hours of work:                     Full-time

Normal minimum hours of attendance for the post are 36 hours per week over a 5-day period, Monday to Friday.

Flexi time is available. This post may also be suitable for job share.

Annual Leave:

The annual leave allowance is 25 days per year, rising to 30 days per year after 5 years’ service. There are also 12 days public and privilege leave. Part-time staff will receive this on a pro rata basis.                  

Short Summary: Post background

JNCC is looking for an evidence specialist with experience synthesising evidence from diverse sources to devise approaches to complex problems. You will work within a dynamic, multi-disciplinary Ecosystems Analysis team. You will help deliver innovative ways of measuring the trajectory of biodiversity as we strive to meet the Nature Positive 2030 vision and collate evidence that integrates biodiversity into the complex decision making in areas such as land management, sustainable production and overseas development projects.

You will be working with colleagues who sustain and develop, alongside NGO and academic partners, the iconic long-term measure of biodiversity change in the UK. You will also interact with colleagues who have led the application of the new wave of Earth

Observation data to the environment, and others finding novel evidence to support diverse areas including sustainable consumption and plant health.

Our work involves devising practical evidence solutions to complex problems including targeting investment for multiple ecosystem service outcomes, detecting the response of biodiversity to interventions at the local scale, understanding the impact of consumption on the environment, and devising workable indicators for soil health and biodiversity indicators for Overseas Development Aid projects.

The ecosystems evidence specialist post has a cross cutting role, sourcing and packaging evidence for colleagues, policy customers and public communication pieces. These are likely to include a combination of research synthesis, finding novel ways of summarising evidence to achieve impact, research commissioning, stakeholder engagement, and depending on skillset, more technical data analysis.

As post holder, you will use your evidence and facilitation skills to help ensure that environmental decision making is based on the best available evidence.

The precise duties and responsibilities will be determined depending on the skills of the successful candidate.

Job Description: Post Duties

• Establish the current state of knowledge, and the tools and techniques available to quantify environmental pressures, activities or responses through rapid or more systematic review.
• Deliver outputs from the evidence-base, including case studies, research syntheses, proofs of concept, evidence for policy summaries, tools, standards, and research reports or published research, leading or working collaboratively with others.
• Deliver stakeholder engagement activities, including the preparation, delivery and reporting of workshops and meetings. This includes the development of meeting and workshop materials (e.g. briefs, agendas, speaker briefs, exercises), facilitation, note taking, preparation of post meeting/workshop outputs, and building and maintaining good relationships with stakeholders.
• Produce (drafting, editing, assembly) and disseminate appropriate communications material through a range of online and print media, communicating project objectives, outputs or practical tools to stakeholders and raising the profile of the team’s work nationally and internationally.
• Manage projects or work packages, with support from senior staff, including contributing to work planning, scoping of potential future work, liaising with customers, staff and contractors, coordinating quality assurance processes for project outputs, and completing relevant project documentation.
• Depending on skillset and interests of the selected candidate, there may also be opportunities to get involved with quantitative data analysis tasks using scripting languages such as R or Python, or GIS software.

Technical

To be a successful candidate you will be/have:

·       Educated to degree level in a science or relevant subject, or have recent equivalent experience, including a solid understanding of scientific process

·       An ability to undertake time limited literature/web reviews with different levels of systematic approach depending on quality needed and to synthesise the results into frameworks that communicate the knowledge to technical and non-technical audiences

Experience (Responsibilities)

To be a successful candidate you will have:

• A good understanding of the components of biodiversity and how these can be related to the services provided to society and to natural capital values.
• A good understanding of the pressures and impacts on biodiversity and how these might affect sustainable development based on examples either within the UK, or other countries.
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Managing a Quality Service

Behaviours

In the event that we receive a large volume of applications we reserve the right to conduct the sift based on the Lead Behaviour of Communicating and Influencing

Please see the CS Behaviours framework for more details at this grade:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/717275/CS_Behaviours_2018.pdf

Nationality requirements 

This job is broadly open to the following groups: 

• UK nationals 
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK 
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland 
  • nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with settled or pre-settled status or who apply for either status by the deadline of the?European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) 
  • relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals working in the Civil Service 
    • relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals who have built up the right to work in the Civil Service 
    • certain family members of the relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals 

Closing date and interview date

The closing date for this post is 23:55 on Sunday, 26 March 2023

The anticipated interview date is week commencing Monday, 03 April 2023

Apply Here