Job Description
Grade UE07: £41,064 - £48,822 per annum pro-rata (£22.50 - £26.75 per hour)
Edinburgh Earth Initiative / Department for Social Responsibility and Sustainability
Part-time: 9 hours per week
Fixed-term: for nine months from September 2025
The Edinburgh Climate Change Institute and School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences are looking for a PhD student to contribute to a project exploring key characteristics, barriers and enablers of interdisciplinary team dynamics within local climate governance. This 9-month project will focus on the context of Scottish local authorities, looking at best practices of effective local governance teams, and the necessary behaviours and policies that could support interdisciplinary collaboration on climate issues.
Click here to view the full project brief for the Earth Fellow: Local governance for climate action, including key tasks and deliverables (opens browser in new tab).
Click here to view the general Earth Fellow job description (opens browser in new tab). Please refer to both the project brief and job description when outlining your skills and experience in your application.
This post will be appointed at Grade UE07, step 1 which is £41,064 per annum, pro rata (£22.50 per hour).
Earth Fellowships are only open to current postgraduate and PhD students in the ‘25/’26 academic year at the University of Edinburgh based in the UK. Please do not apply if you are not a current University of Edinburgh student.
Your Skills And Attributes For Success
- Current University of Edinburgh PhD student in the ‘25/’26 academic year.
- An interest in and background relevant to climate action and psychology.
- Experience facilitating interviews with stakeholders.
- Experience with literature reviews of academic and grey literature.
- Excellent communication skills including the ability to communicate complex information clearly, both in writing and in oral presentations.
- Ability to work proactively with colleagues with a variety of expertise; understanding and valuing different points of view.
As an Earth Fellow, you will be joining a diverse, fun and dynamic team of researchers, students and staff all working together to address the global climate emergency. As part of the Earth Fellows programme, you will have access to co-working space, exciting networking and personal development opportunities and opportunities to contribute towards partnerships and solutions for climate change on a global scale.
Earth Fellows work on individual and team-based projects which contribute to the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh Earth Initiative’s work on climate change research-led impact, innovation, engagement, and teaching.
As a valued member of our team you can expect:
- A competitive salary.
- An exciting, positive, creative, challenging and rewarding place to work.
- To be part of a diverse and vibrant international community.
- Comprehensive Staff Benefits, such as a generous holiday entitlement, competitive pension schemes, staff discounts, and family-friendly initiatives. Check out the full list on our staff benefits page (opens in a new tab) and use our reward calculator to discover the total value of your pay and benefits.
Championing equality, diversity and inclusion
The University of Edinburgh holds a Silver Athena SWAN award in recognition of our commitment to advance gender equality in higher education. We are members of the Race Equality Charter and we are also Stonewall Scotland Diversity Champions, actively promoting LGBT equality.
Prior to any employment commencing with the University you will be required to evidence your right to work in the UK. Further information is available on our
right to work webpages (opens new browser tab).
The University is unable to sponsor the employment of international workers in this role. International applicants will therefore be unable to apply for and secure a Skilled Worker visa. They will only be able to take up this role if they can demonstrate an alternative right to work in the UK.
Key dates to note
The closing date for applications is
2nd September 2025.
Unless stated otherwise the closing time for applications is 11:59pm GMT. If you are applying outside the UK the closing time on our adverts automatically adjusts to your browsers local time zone.
Interviews will be held during September.
About Us
As a world-leading research-intensive University, we are here to address tomorrow’s greatest challenges. Between now and 2030 we will do that with a values-led approach to teaching, research and innovation, and through the strength of our relationships, both locally and globally.
About The Team
Launched in 2022, the Edinburgh Earth Initiative was established by the University’s Executive with a cross institutional remit to drive a step change in the University’s engagements with climate and sustainability challenges.
In 2024, a strategic review of Edinburgh Earth Initiative was completed and the results of that review, including a strategy for 2025-2030, were approved by the University Executive. The strategy states that the mission of EEI is to catalyse bold, globally significant transdisciplinary research, innovation and partnerships at the University in support of the Research & Innovation Strategy 2030 and Climate Strategy.
Edinburgh Earth Initiative Website ( https://earth.ed.ac.uk/ ) (opens in new browser tab)
