Senior Researcher

We are recruiting for a Senior Researcher - A Healthy Life

We are Nesta, the UK’s innovation agency for social good. We design, test and scale solutions to society’s biggest problems. Our three missions are to give every child a fair start, help people live healthy lives, and create a sustainable future where the economy works for both people and the planet.

For over 20 years, we have worked to support, encourage and inspire innovation. We work in three roles: as an innovation partner working with frontline organisations to design and test new solutions, as a venture builder supporting new and early stage businesses, and as a system shaper creating the conditions for innovation.

Harnessing the rigour of science and the creativity of design, we work relentlessly to change millions of lives for the better. Find out more at

We are seeking a Senior Researcher to work in Nesta’s ‘A Healthy Life’ mission. We want to increase the number of years lived in good health for all. We are focusing on tackling one of the biggest drivers of lost years of healthy life: obesity. Our primary focus currently is on improving our food environments i.e. making healthy food more available, accessible, affordable, appealing and convenient for all.

We work across sectors - with businesses, national policymakers, local government, academics and other charities - in order to drive the changes we need to see to improve health.

• Delivery of research:
  • Conduct statistical analysis and modelling with large, complex datasets to provide novel insights and to understand our food sector partners’ contexts.
  • Develop practical research questions that are aligned to our mission and our food sector partners’ goals.
  • Robustly evaluate outcomes in Python and/or R using collaborative coding.
  • Critically and accurately appraise and summarise existing evidence.
  • Identify appropriate methodologies/approaches that help answer research questions and support effective evaluation.
  • Write detailed research protocols that cover what we’re evaluating, why it needs to be evaluated, and how we will evaluate it.
• Delivery of projects:
  • Build strong relationships with food and health sector partners to ensure the smooth delivery of trials and evaluations.
  • Oversee the implementation of interventions in real‑world settings, ensuring strong implementation fidelity.
  • Help ensure the delivery of trials whilst understanding and respecting implementation partners’ challenges and priorities.
  • Own progress against tasks and milestones and communicate these to the project team.
• Communicating and disseminating the team’s work, which may include producing reports and slide decks for partners, writing blogs, public speaking, stakeholder engagement and leading new and creative ways to communicate ideas to different audiences.
• Development of new work, including project idea generation, project scoping, research and writing bids and proposals.
• Support the development of a strong research culture across Nesta, for example through contributing to the delivery of training of colleagues in rigorous and transparent research methodologies, active participation in peer learning sessions, peer‑review of analytical work and support for more junior colleagues to build analytical skills.
• Work with a junior colleague and support them in project coordination and management, including liaising with partners, preparing agendas and minutes for meetings, chairing small meetings, and coordinating updates.

• A Bachelor or Masters qualification in a relevant discipline with a significant quantitative component, and relevant experience in academia, industry or public/third sector
• Or at least three years of relevant experience in academia, industry or public/third sector

• You can conduct statistical analyses end-to-end, including data wrangling and preparation, designing and implementing a statistical analysis plan, and undertaking and interpreting statistical models.
• Experience with Programming Languages, at a minimum be able to wrangle data and conduct analysis in python or R. We are a python-first team.
• You have a…