Innovation Team Research Assistant

City of Durham; Durham (NC); Hybrid; USD 29,000 - 32,000; Part time

Job summary

City of Durham is seeking a Research Assistant for the Innovation Team to help execute projects and summarize work in reports, case studies, blog posts, and proposals for technical and lay audiences.

The role supports ongoing improvement initiatives with literature reviews, data reviews, and prototyping, and involves creating case studies and infographics for public-facing content.

Qualifications

• Must be currently enrolled as an undergrad or grad student in a related field.
• Experience writing for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Interest in municipal innovation, process improvement, and storytelling.
• Experience with communication design tools such as Canva.

Responsibilities

• Support ongoing continuous improvement and innovation projects through early stage research (literature review, existing data review), ideation, prototyping, and testing.
• Assist with the compilation and writing of technical project reports.
• Provide input to newly launched program evaluation process.
• Develop content, including case studies and infographics, for the I-Team’s webpage, targeted at residents and non-technical audiences.

Skills

Written communication

Data analysis

Public policy knowledge

UX principles

Education

Undergraduate or graduate student in public policy / social science / communications

Tools

Canva

Wordpress

CivicPlus

SharePoint

Job description

Work, Serve, Thrive. With the City of Durham

Advance in your career while making a real difference in the community you serve.

Hiring Range: $21.00 - $22.95

Hours: Flexible, approximately 10-12 hours per week with at least some hours in office at City Hall

The Budget and Management Services Department works to solve Durham's biggest challenges. We are innovators, managing City resources like they're our own, guiding the City's future through strategic planning and encouraging a culture of innovation and continuous improvement through special projects, partnerships and trainings. If innovating to solve challenges drives you, too, join our team in Durham!

The City of Durham’s Innovation Team manages the continuous improvement and innovation workplans for the City of Durham. Our process includes detailed exploration, ideation, testing, and analysis phases for each project we take on with a commitment to storytelling throughout. We are looking for a research assistant who can help execute these projects and summarize our work in reports, case studies, blog posts, and proposals for both technical and lay audiences.

• Support ongoing continuous improvement and innovation projects through early stage research (literature review, existing data review), ideation, prototyping, and testing.


• Assist with the compilation and writing of technical project reports.


• Provide input to newly launched program evaluation process.


• Develop content, including case studies and infographics, for the I-Team’s webpage, targeted at residents and non-technical audiences.

• Must be a currently enrolled undergraduate or graduate student at an accredited university or college pursuing a degree in public policy, social science, communications, or other related field.


• Experience writing for both technical and non-technical audiences.

• Interest in the work of municipal innovation teams including process improvement, applied research and experiments, and storytelling.


• Experience with communication design tools such as Canva.


• Experience and interest in user experience design principles.


• Minimal familiarity with blogs or website-hosting and publishing platforms such as Wordpress, CivicPlus, SharePoint, etc.


• Experience conducting exploratory research.


• Experience with d ata analysis or visualization.