Researcher (AI and quantitative)

Livevacancies; Greater London; On-site; GBP 35,000 - 43,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

5% contributory pension

Life assurance

Long-term disability cover

Critical illness cover

Coaching and mentoring for skills

Job summary

The Open Data Institute (ODI) is seeking a researcher to advance data-centric AI methodologies and benchmarking across projects. You will develop and evaluate models, curate datasets, and communicate findings through reports, blogs and policy briefings. Collaboration with clients and partners will shape ODI’s research agenda and services.

Based in the UK, you will contribute to cross-disciplinary teams, publish technical annexes, and mentor colleagues while supporting fundraising and proposals.

Qualifications

• Proficiency in scoping and planning research projects.
• Execution of qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research.
• Understanding of research impact, integrity and open science principles.
• Experience applying rigorous evaluation methods for qualitative and quantitative work.
• Privacy/GDPR considerations in research practice.

Responsibilities

• Conduct and manage research activities within projects in tight timeframes.
• Lead work packages covering corpus construction and benchmarking reproducibility.
• Engage with stakeholders to reflect needs in benchmarks and evaluations.
• Assess AI-readiness of datasets using ODI frameworks.
• Publish technical outputs and reproducible code alongside policy briefings.
• Coordinate with partners and clients in scoping and delivering work.
• Support business development through research design and proposals.

Skills

Research design

Quantitative analysis

Qualitative analysis

Statistical modeling

Stakeholder engagement

Tools

LLM/RAG knowledge

Job description

Salary: £39,071 per annum depending on experience, plus benefits

Grade: 6 (May be able to offer a senior role (Grade 5) depending on experience)

Contract: 12-month Fixed Term Contract with possibility of extension, renewal or switch to permanent.

Closing Date: Friday 9 October 2026

About the role

Drawing from multiple disciplines, ODI research creates knowledge, methods, and approaches to build open and trustworthy data ecosystems. Research projects at the ODI range from theoretical to applied, involve a range of sectors and stakeholders, are mindful of diversity, equity and inclusion considerations, and deliver tangible impact.

This role has a strong focus on artificial intelligence, specifically advancing data-centric AI methodologies, benchmark creation and model evaluation, and improving the AI readiness of existing and emerging data infrastructures. Research outputs support the communication of insights, best practices, and recommendations as part of our policy and advisory work, and inform new tools, courses, and services.

Research at the ODI follows established and emerging research methods from computer science, data science, economics, and social and political sciences and is aligned with our research integrity practices. As a member of the team you will contribute to this community of practice.

Typical research outputs the role would lead on and contribute to include, depending on the type of project: technical reports, landscape reviews, blog posts, literature reviews, academic articles, slide decks, visualisations, datasets, code.

Key responsibilities:

Conduct and manage research activities within projects on a variety of topics in tight timeframes, specifically:

• Execution of rigorous experiments to evaluate model performance according to a diverse range of technical metrics.
• Lead and own work packages covering corpus construction, ground-truth curation, task design, evaluation harnesses, and statistical analysis, and benchmarking reproducibility
• Contribute to stakeholder engagement to ensure benchmarks and evaluations reflect the needs and expectations of stakeholders
• Assess public sector and government datasets and use cases for AI-readiness using established ODI frameworks.
• Author of peer-reviewed technical papers, conference submissions,technical annexes, and reproducible code repositories alongside blog posts and policy briefings.
• Design and conduct desk reviews, systematic literature reviews, stakeholder mapping, surveys and interviews on areas related to data, AI and technology, drawing on wider theoretical frameworks.
• Coordinate with external partners, collaborators and clients in scoping and delivering work.
• Support business development and fundraising activities by contributing to research design, methodology drafting and proposal development.
• Communicate research findings to a wide range of audiences through high quality written reports, blog posts, peer-reviewed publications, presentations and workshops to ensure they have high impact.
• Work with the wider ODI team to define and shape the ODI’s research agenda, topics and policy positions.
• Support others in the ODI to strengthen their skills and knowledge in research.

As a member of the ODI team, your responsibilities also include:

• Reflecting and developing ODI's values and culture in the way you work.
• Taking time for continuous professional development, coaching and mentoring, both individually and as a team.

Key skills and competencies

As an ODI researcher, you are expected to meet the following level of competency:

• Proficiency in research scoping and planning, choosing and justification of research methods, and research synthesis and communication.
• Proficiency in execution of qualitative, quantitative and mixed research.
• An understanding of research impact, research integrity and open science/ FAIR principles.
• An understanding and practical experience in applying rigorous research evaluation methods for qualitative and quantitative research.
• Proficient understanding of privacy/ GDPR implications, especially for research practice.
• Substantial knowledge of how data is published, accessed, shared, and analysed, ideally with experience working on projects about data access, open data, and how they impact and are impacted by technology.
• Being comfortable communicating research results to clients in areas such as the impact of the collection, use, and sharing of data on organisations and society.
• Knowledge of how to use research findings to inform decisions in projects, policy and/or business environments
• Organised and with attention to detail.

Specifically for this role:

• Practical experience in data-centric AI methodologies, including benchmark building and dataset quality assurance.
• Deep applied technical knowledge of Large Language Models (LLM), Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), and agentic frameworks.
• Practical experience of evaluation protocols, harness design, and comparative benchmarking across major open and closed-source model families.
• Proficiency in statistical modeling and machine learning workflows.
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate, measure, and operationalise dataset AI-readiness.
• Proven track record of authoring commissioned research, technical frameworks, or policy briefings for major tech organisations, government bodies, or philanthropic foundations.
• Experience managing end-to-end research work packages, including overseeing dataset pipelines, equivalence protocols, and multi-partner research deliverables.
• Experience in and knowledge of current debates in the data and/or open culture movements, ideally including the collection, processing and use of data by AI systems.
• Track record of producing rigorous technical annexes, and publications, and reproducible code bases alongside accessible public policy reporting.
• Experience of working with multiple projects and teams in an agile environment.
• Ability to multi-task and move quickly between projects through effective prioritisation.
• Developed people skills and a positive attitude to working with non-research specialists and appreciation of the contribution others can make.

About us

The Open Data Institute is an independent, non-profit company founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt in 2012. We connect, equip and inspire people around the world to innovate with data. We produce products and services for customers that span across many sectors and countries supporting all data activities. More details can be found on our website: http://theodi.org/ .

The ODI’s Values

• The ODI expects all staff and associates to demonstrate our values of curiosity, creativity and collaboration.
• Curiosity – We ask questions, we are interested in our world, in the people we work with, and in the opportunities and risks we encounter together. We challenge assumptions and the status quo so that we continuously learn, improve and grow, enabling all of our partners to do the same.
• Creativity – We strive to be creative in our approach, culture and outcomes so that everything we do delivers unique value and is inspiring.
• Collaboration – We seek to bring together the best people, organisations and ideas to contribute positively to everything we do together and to the world we aim for - a world where we bring the best of collective working to provide the skills and insights needed to achieve positive, sustainable impact.

• 5% contributory pension
• Life assurance cover
• Long-term disability cover
• Critical illness cover
• Coaching and mentoring for skills and personal development

Note to applicants

The ODI welcomes and encourages job applications from a diverse range of backgrounds to promote an inclusive culture and a diverse working environment.

We are committed to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and respected. We expect all employees to embrace and uphold these values. This includes actively participating in DEI initiatives, fostering a culture of belonging, treating colleagues with dignity, and demonstrating a willingness to learn and grow in understanding diverse perspectives. We believe that a workplace that reflects the world around us drives innovation and makes us a stronger company.

We are now recognised as a Disability Confident Committed employer (Level 2)

The scheme helps us recruit and retain great people; draw from the widest possible pool of talent; secure high-quality employees who are skilled, loyal and hardworking; and improve employee morale and commitment by demonstrating that we treat all of our people fairly.

Department

Research and Development

Contract type

Fixed Term Contract

Hours

35