We are recruiting a Research Associate for a Belgium-based research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust, ‘Interpreting the Governance of Human Trafficking: explaining policy practice’. The post-holder will be based at Ghent University in the Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy. This is an excellent opportunity for an undergraduate- or master’s-degree holder in law or social sciences to participate in a large-scale project on policy analysis and interpretation in the field of criminology. The project is an innovative, comparative interpretive study of public policy and practice regarding human trafficking. It compares public policy and implementation practices across the United Kingdom, Belgium and Romania. The project objectives are to:

• Discover the interplay between governance structures, interpretation and practitioner discretion
• Explain how policy workers govern the trafficking problem by interpreting and responding to policy, and what this means for people with lived experience of trafficking
• Uncover the network and political dynamics operating in trafficking governance, between policy workers and their organisations, and people with lived experience of trafficking.

The post holder, hereby referred to as the Research Associate, will be employed by The University of Manchester UK, but located at Ghent University (Belgium) under the supervision of Professor Tom Vander Beken. The post holder will also be responsible to the Manchester research Project Team, Dr Anna Forringer-Beal, Dr Nick Turnbull and Professor Rose Broad. While the work specifically relates to the Belgium case studies, it would also inform the wider project goals. The Research Associate will be responsible for conducting fieldwork in Belgium, involving: locating, contacting and working with public officials, non-government agencies, and people with lived experience of human trafficking; semi-structured interviews; field observations; interview transcription and translation; delivery of a survey questionnaire; data management; and policy document analysis. Candidates must be fluent in both Dutch and English.
There is the potential for the post-holder to contribute to academic conference presentations and publications. This is an excellent career opportunity for a social researcher to gain skills managing and conducting fieldwork, examining policy texts, and codifying research themes. The Research Associate would join a team focused on collegial, collaborative practice and the production of high-quality research.

Please refer the Job description for details