Postdoctoral Researcher (gn)

To support research, analysis, and academic content development on city government, governance systems, and public sector innovation, we are seeking a Postdoctoral Researcher (gn) on a full-time basis (40 hours/week), with a contract initially limited until 30 June 2027, and the opportunity to extend for further years within the project duration.

The Postdoctoral Researcher will contribute to a major research and executive education initiative on city government innovation. Working with project faculty and international research partners at LSE Cities, they will conduct research on governance systems, city-level innovation and programme impact (70%), while also contributing to teaching materials, case development and selected teaching and facilitation activities (30%).

The position is particularly suited to candidates pursuing an academic career and offers opportunities to contribute to empirical research, indicator development, policy analysis and academic publications.

Your tasks:

• Support the implementation of a research agenda on city government innovation, governance systems and institutional change in collaboration with academic colleagues and research partners.
• Develop and refine governance indicators and monitoring systems, supporting data collection, validation, reproducibility and comparative analysis across cities.
• Maintain and analyse national, regional and city-level indicator frameworks covering input, process, output and outcome dimensions.
• Conduct qualitative and quantitative research on city government innovation, administrative capacity, governance practices and programme impact, using AI- and LLM-enabled tools for data analysis, coding, synthesis and triangulation where appropriate and ethically permissible.
• Contribute to reports, policy briefs, academic publications, working papers and other policy-oriented outputs.
• Translate research findings into teaching cases, city examples, classroom exercises, curriculum materials and other applied learning formats for executive education.
• Support the preparation and delivery of academic content, including classroom facilitation, group-work supervision, synthesis of participant insights and academic evaluation.
• Contribute to internal learning, reporting and impact assessment by translating research and programme insights into clear written outputs.

Your profile:

Essential Requirements:

• A completed PhD in political science, sociology, public policy, public administration, organisational studies, urban studies, governance studies or a related field.
• Strong qualitative and quantitative research skills, including experience with data analysis tools and the development and analysis of indicators, frameworks and empirical datasets.
• Excellent analytical writing skills, with the ability to contribute to academic publications, policy outputs and research-based teaching materials.
• Excellent communication and engagement skills, including experience working with senior practitioners and international participants.
• Ability to work effectively in diverse, international and multidisciplinary teams.
• Intellectual curiosity and the ability to engage with literature across social science disciplines.
• Excellent written and spoken English; additional languages are an asset.

Desirable assets:

• A demonstrated research interest in cities, local government, governance systems, public-sector innovation, institutional change or related fields.
• Experience with dataset construction, data cleaning, metadata documentation, indicator validation and reproducible analytical workflows.
• Experience conducting comparative research.
• Experience using LLMs and AI-assisted methods responsibly to analyse large volumes of mixed qualitative and documentary data.
• Knowledge of research ethics, anonymisation, data protection, informed consent and the responsible handling of practitioner data.
• Experience in case or curriculum development, teaching, facilitation or executive education.

Mobile working possible

The deadline for full consideration is 20 August 2026. To apply, please submit one PDF containing an up-to-date CV, a short cover letter, references, and one writing sample, preferably an academic paper, policy report, or research-based teaching case. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to apply early.

Please contact Frank Garrison, Deputy Head of Operations and Programmes | Executive Education, for further information about the position.