Location: London or Milton Keynes
(minimum of two days a week in the office. You can do more than two days if preferable)
Reporting to: Design Futures Team Lead
Working hours: Full time (9 day fortnight companywide)
Band: 3.1
Salary: £51,000 to £58,000 (Dependent on office location and proven ability)
Contract type/duration: Permanent
Closing date: 17th October 2024
About Connected Places Catapult
Connected Places Catapult is the UK's innovation accelerator for cities, transport and place leadership. We are a Centre of Excellence for urban innovation and mobility with a role to catalyse the innovation market in the UK and globally. Our teams provide world-class innovation as a service to support the development of new products and services that enable cities, organisations and businesses to generate new ideas, test concepts and develop new solutions for the UK and beyond.
The Human Connected Design (HCD) directorate at Connected Places Catapult is responsible for the strategic use of design, supporting the Catapult in its mission to help grow businesses, build the UK economy and service the creation of truly connected places. The directorate examines the relationships between people and planet and puts a healthy future at the heart of innovations and technologies that we help to design and build. We are made up of three highly collaborative and creative teams: Human Insights, Connected Design and Design Futures. The three teams include experts in user research, service design, psychology, design futures, sociology, and human factors.
Design Futures
- The Design Futures Team:
- Conducts trends research for use across Connected Places Catapult projects and programmes
- Visions possible futures in the context of innovation imperatives - human experience, connected intelligence, and climate action
- Uses futures approaches to mature discussion and design of strategy informed by trade-offs and co-benefits between plausible futures
- Develops agile pathways consisting of roadmaps with contingency plans associated with probable futures
- Works with others with relevant skills to create forecasting models to project the future under specific assumptions
- Uses participatory design to build worlds that elicit feelings and discussion about preferred futures
The Catapult is an innovation accelerator - we ask the question: innovating towards what? ...and suggest how we might get there.
Purpose of the role
We are seeking an Foresight Specialist to lead research on core areas of ‘Connected Places', such as transport systems, place or built environment, and infrastructure. These areas include rail, aviation, maritime, mixed use real estate, as well as the physical and digital infrastructure. They will use this research and expertise to develop evocative scenarios about our planet, its boundaries and the impact on people. In this role, you will shape, lead, and promote projects that unlock UK innovation and safeguard against market failures. In addition to the skills and responsibilities below, this role offers a unique opportunity to shape the Design Futures team and develop meaningful propositions through project and programme leadership.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead multidisciplinary teams of experts in the fields of design, engineering, data science and software development and housing and urban development, to deliver a portfolio of complex projects
- Use foresight methodologies that lead to greater understanding of the opportunities and risks related to innovation and change
- Combine qualitative narratives and quantitative forecasts about Climate Change to ‘People's Experience' and digital ‘Connected Intelligence'
- Connect climate related themes such as circular economy, regenerative design, and adaptation to projects involving a wide variety of industries, including mobility, real estate, infrastructure, supply chain, and digital twins
- Shape projects and strategies using the opportunities and risks surfaced and illustrated in foresight activities e.g. trends, drives, and signals
- Think holistically about climate solutions including materials science, consumer behaviour, waste management, and policy
- Use systems thinking to understand context, stakeholders, challenges, opportunities, tensions, and trade-offs
- Manage key trends research by gathering signals, deducing key drivers of change, and visualising findings for periodic release
- Engage with colleagues across the organisation to ensure expertise in all domains are represented in future scenarios
- Present foresight research in workshops and speaking events to make plausible changes to climate, society, and technology tangible and accessible
- Ensuring an ethos of equity, inclusivity and diversity underpin your work activity, contributing to inclusive innovation across all Catapult activities
- You may be required to undertake any other reasonable duties to support the Catapult in achieving its strategic outcomes and ensure effective business operations
Requirements
Required skills and experience
- Demonstrable experience working in one or more of the following domains - transportation, built environment, climate action - in a creative, analytical, or commercial capacity
- Substantive experience working as project lead delivering strategically aligned projects, whilst also acting as a subject matter expert
- Ability to effectively communicate the value in foresight and futures thinking to technical as well as non-technical audiences
- Deep experience with multiple forms of primary and secondary research and the ability to communicate insights visually
- Experience in designing, facilitating, and synthesising workshops, both virtual and in person
- Affinity for both creative and technical writing
- Values generative conversations to play with ideas and is equally enthusiastic to focus on deep independent work, that is - the ability to diverge energetically and converge diligently
- Likes to embrace ambiguity, initiate discovery, and synthesise effectively and concisely
- Ability to think critically about trade-offs as well as co-benefits with a propensity to create frameworks and metaphors to communicate new ideas, especially in communicating paradoxes and dichotomies
- Ability to find and understand or create and communicate useful frameworks to structure and communicate thinking
- Growth mindset, courage, and initiative to take on new and foreign challenges
- Flexible, with ability to lead multiple projects at the same time and pick up new skills and capabilities as required for different projects
- Collaborative approach to working with the ability to take ownership of large and unstructured tasks
- Self-motivated with attention to detail and an eye for aesthetic
- Experience managing high profile client relationships and managing commercial contracts
Desirable:
- Proof of thought leadership: published articles, blogs, work samples in the realm of futures studies and foresight
- Master's degree or equivalent opportunity to explore theoretical concepts, including evidence of rigorous self-study. We are looking for strong theoretical knowledge and the ability to apply it to practical scenarios.
- T-shaped profile; broad understanding of relevant disciplines with deep subject matter expertise in a specific field, such as economics, sociology, anthropology et al.
- Broad interest in design disciplines, including newer practices, such as policy design
- Global perspective with keen interest in history and international events; professional, academic, or other first-hand experience abroad is a plus
- Ab understanding of the UK and European collaborative R&D ecosystem would be advantageous
- Visual communicator with requisite design skills, such as InDesign, Illustrator, photoshop, Premier et al
Benefits
- 9 day fortnight for everyone, we have a full company shutdown every other Friday
- 23.5 holiday entitlement for everyone, with pro-rata calculations for part-time employees, along with a Christmas shutdown period for additional days off
- Competitive pension, up to 10% company contribution to help you save for your future
- Two paid days of volunteering leave per year (pro-rata for part-time employees) to support charitable activities
- Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) providing 24/7 confidential work/life support services to you and your immediate family members
- Cycle to Work Scheme encouraging a healthy and sustainable commute
- Cash Health Plan, offering reimbursement for a wide range of essential and everyday healthcare expenses, promoting your well-being
- Payroll Giving scheme, allowing regular charitable contributions from pre-tax income, maximizing the impact of your donations
- Discounts and offers from a wide variety of retailers, enhancing your purchasing power and providing savings opportunities
Employment here is based solely upon individual merit and qualifications directly related to professional competence. We strictly prohibit unlawful discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, colour, religion, national origin, ancestry, pregnancy status, sex, gender identity or expression, age, marital status, mental or physical disability, medical condition, sexual orientation, or any other characteristics protected by law. We also make all reasonable accommodations to meet our obligations under laws protecting the rights of the disabled.
