Professional Internship within the Evidence and Evaluation Function

Within the Evidence and Evaluation Function at UKRI-BBSRC, there is an exciting opportunity for a Professional Internship for PhD Students (PIPS) placement to work on exploring new ways of portfolio analysis using a range of novel analytics tools. This interesting and challenging internship will provide insights into BBSRC’s portfolio and innovative ways of analysing and visualising data, which enrich the evidence base for decision making and strategic planning. As a PIPS intern, you will be closely involved in work that interfaces with many areas of the office, spanning the remit of BBSRC science.

Background

UKRI-BBSRC provides a strategic capability aimed at ensuring that the UK retains its world leading position in many areas of the biological sciences, and that the UK has the knowledge and skills base to remain internationally competitive in biology-based industries.

Within the Evidence and Evaluation Function, we seek to further develop our analytical capabilities, exploiting advances in text analytics, data visualisation and auto-classification in order to enrich the evidence base to inform UKRI-BBSRC strategic planning. With data at the centre of our work, we are enabling rapid, data-driven insights into our portfolio of research investments, outputs and outcomes. Within the team, we use a range of analytics tools, including Power BI, Tableau, Sci2, Gephi and Alteryx. We are currently in the process of exploring new data visualisation workflows, taking advantage of more advanced features of Sci2 and Gephi for network analysis. Moreover, we use text mining and clustering capabilities of the next generation clustering engine Lingo4G, which groups documents into related topics and provides simple and intuitive visualisations. This is particularly helpful in analysing multi-disciplinary areas of our portfolio, classifying those areas of research that span across remits of other research councils and funders, e.g. within multi-funder partnerships, and defining emerging fields of research. This innovative approach will enable new, meaningful and rapid insights into our portfolio and provide an opportunity for further collaborative work across UK Research and Innovation on mutual areas of interest.

Role of the PIPS intern

There is an opportunity for a PIPS intern to assist in portfolio analyses spanning the entire breath of BBSRC research, looking at emerging areas of science using topic burst analysis. Some of the analyses might focus specifically on defined areas of the portfolio, such as particular research areas, international collaboration and interactions with key stakeholders. The project will allow the PIPS intern to develop skills in text mining and clustering approaches, as well as data analysis and presentation. The PIPS intern will support UKRI-BBSRC staff in the above analyses and will have a chance to get involved in developing new data visualisations. At the end of the project, the PIPS intern will be expected to produce a report summarising findings of the analyses performed and visualisations developed, details of which will be presented to the team. The role will be located within the Policy, Strategy and Evidence Domain and provide a unique opportunity to learn about how our analyses inform the strategic planning and decision making. The PIPS intern should have enthusiasm for science and data analysis, as well as good organisational, communication and interpersonal skills. This placement will also be an excellent opportunity to learn about other activities within UKRI-BBSRC and UK Research and Innovation as a whole.

When

You should be available to start your placement in May 2020, however the start date is negotiable.

How to apply

If you would like to apply for this PIPS placement, please complete the attached application form and return it to pips@bbsrc.ukri.org and Joanna.Jacklin@BBSRC.ukri.org

Download the application form here:

2020 BBSRC Evidence and Evaluation applic form

Deadline for applications: Monday 2nd March 2020

Contact

Questions on this placement can be directed to Dr Joanna Jacklin (Joanna.Jacklin@BBSRC.ukri.org).