Environmental Change & Sustainability

Location:  Highfield Campus
Salary:   £39,739 to £50,296 Per annum
Full Time Permanent
Closing Date:  Wednesday 27 July 2022
Interview Date:   To be confirmed
Reference:  1883122WR

* Post will have links to the Environmental Change and Sustainability research theme in the School of Geography & Environmental Science.

Southampton is in the top 1% of world Universities and one of the UK’s top 10 research-intensive universities, with an international reputation for leading research, teaching, and enterprise activities.

The School of Geography & Environmental Science is seeking to appoint a Lecturer in Environmental Science. This appointment will strengthen the School's existing research, teaching, and impact activities within environmental law, policy, economics, and governance.  

If successful, you will join one of the School’s four vibrant research groups: Environmental Change and Sustainability; Economy, Society, and Governance; Landscape Dynamics and Ecology; or Population, Health, and Wellbeing. You will develop collaborations with colleagues in the school and across the wider University community focusing on environmental law, environmental governance, environmental economics, or environmental or climate policy. You will have an established record of research activity within your specialist domain. We welcome applications from scholars with a PhD (or equivalent professional qualification and/or experience) in Environmental Science, Geography or related disciplines and whose research actively engages with environmental law, economics, governance, and policy. We particularly welcome those able to enrich our expertise in application of these topics in the global south.  

The appointed candidate will contribute to and lead Environmental Science and Geography modules at undergraduate and/or postgraduate-taught (MSc) level, conducted through lectures, tutorials, practicals, workshops, seminars, and/or fieldwork. Teaching responsibilities will involve delivering on core programme and elective modules, field courses, and student project supervision. Ability to teach subjects such as Environmental Law, Environmental Impact Assessment, Environmental Economics, Environmental Governance, Environmental and / or Climate Policy is highly desirable. There is wide scope in this post for contributing to novel and new methods in teaching and learning, and the school actively supports delivery of innovative teaching methods and approaches.

The University of Southampton is in the top 1% of world Universities and one of the UK’s top 10 research-intensive universities. We have an international reputation for research, teaching and enterprise activities. The School of Geography and Environmental Science carries out world-leading and impactful research, enterprise, and education across a range of disciplines that span the human-environment interface and address some of the world’s most pressing challenges. These include global environmental change, its impacts on ecosystem services, biodiversity, food security, and associated human responses; palaeo-environmental reconstruction, geomorphology, ecosystem dynamics and land surface systems; demographic mapping, geographies of care and wellbeing, and human and planetary health geography; economic geography, politics and the state, migration, feminist geography, and entrepreneurship and creative labour. Our research and collaborations are truly international, spanning 78 countries. In the REF2021, the world’s largest research assessment exercise, our School was ranked joint third nationally in geography and environmental studies on grade point average (a measure of overall research quality). Our research working environment was rated either world-leading or internationally excellent, whilst 75% of our research impact was rated world-leading. The School is in the top one hundred geography departments worldwide (QS World Rankings 2021). We host the world-renowned WorldPop and Geodata research and enterprise centres, and state of the art laboratory and computational facilities. Our education is research driven, with high NSS scores: in 2021 the overall satisfaction scores were BA Geography 92%, BSc Geography 84% and Environmental Science 83%. We are ranked 5th in the Guardian rankings for geography and environmental sciences 

Experience with undergraduate and/or postgraduate teaching is preferred; formal training in or recognition of teaching proficiency is desirable. The School and University also offers mentorship support and a variety of opportunities for skill-building and professional development. We welcome applications from scholars with an active interest in, and/or previous experience with, de-colonising physical science curricula.

The School of Geography and Environmental Science is committed to fostering a culture of equality, diversity and inclusion: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/geography/about/equality-diversity-and-inclusion.page  We welcome applications from suitably qualified candidates, and particularly encourage applications from candidates belonging to groups who are under-represented within academic posts at the University, including, but not limited to: people from Black and minority ethnic groups; and disabled people. The School is committed to providing equal opportunities for all and offer a range of family friendly policies, flexi-time and flexible working. We are a Disability Confident employer and the School holds a bronze Athena SWAN award

The post is being offered on full-time, permanent basis and is tenable from 1st September 2022.

Informal enquiries may be made to Professor Justin Sheffield (Head of School; justin.sheffield@soton.ac.uk) or Doctor Pete Shaw (Head of Environmental Science; p.j.shaw@soton.ac.uk)

The modality of education delivery will naturally depend on the Covid-19 pandemic status and local conditions, but it is anticipated that teaching during the 2022/23 academic session will be in-person. The University has clear guidelines and plans for moving between online teaching and in-person teaching if needed. The primary concern underlying all these plans is for the safety of staff and students.

Application Procedure:

You should submit your completed online application form at https://jobs.soton.ac.uk. The application deadline will be midnight on the closing date stated above. If you need any assistance, please call Jane Sturgeon (HR Recruitment Team) on +44 (0) 23 8059 4043 or email recruitment@soton.ac.uk  Please quote reference 1883122WR on all correspondence.