Assistant Professor in Enterprise and Sociology

Working at Durham University

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As one of the UK's leading universities, Durham is an incredible place to define your career. The University is located within a beautiful historic city, home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and surrounded by stunning countryside. Our talented scholars and researchers from around the world are tackling global issues and making a difference to people's lives.

We believe that inspiring our people to do outstanding things at Durham enables Durham people to do outstanding things in the world. Being a part of Durham is about more than just the success of the University, it's also about contributing to the success of the city, county and community.

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The Department

Durham University seeks to appoint a talented individual to the role of Assistant Professor in Enterprise and Sociology. The successful applicant will be part of the Management & Marketing Department and the new Global Centre for Contextual Safeguarding (GCCS). This post offers an exciting opportunity to make a major contribution to the development of internationally excellent research and teaching while allowing you unrivalled opportunities to progress and embed your career in an exciting and progressive institution. For more information, please visit our Department and the GCCS pages at Management and Marketing - Durham University Business School and https://www.contextualsafeguarding.org.uk

Assistant Professors at Durham

Assistant Professors on the Education and Research track are encouraged to focus on research and teaching, but are also expected to engage in wider citizenship to enhance their own development, support their department and discipline, and contribute to the wider student experience.

Academic colleagues are supported to publish excellent research in their area of interest with a focus on high quality outputs (including monographs and journal articles), rather than quantity.

We aim to support your research needs, including practical help such as resources to attend conferences and to fund research activities, as well as a generous research leave policy and a designated mentor.

Durham University is also committed to ensuring outstanding teaching quality, stimulating learning environments, and innovative curricula for all our students. You will be supported to develop your teaching expertise and skills.

We are confident that our recruitment process allows us to attract and select the best talent to Durham. We, therefore, offer a reduced probation period of 1 year for our Assistant Professors and thereafter, subject to satisfactory performance, your position will be confirmed as permanent.

Applicants must demonstrate high quality research in the field of Entrepreneurship, with the ability to teach our students to an exceptional standard and to fully engage in the services, citizenship and values of the University.

We strive to provide a working and teaching environment that is inclusive and welcoming and where everyone is treated fairly with dignity and respect. Candidates will be expected to demonstrate these key principles as part of the assessment process.

Assistant Professor in Enterprise and Sociology

We welcome applications from those with research and teaching interests in the broad field of Enterprise and Sociology and we are particularly eager to hear from applicants with a strong background in research and a track record in income generation, external engagement, science commercialisation and impact with a focus on, but not limited to, the following areas:

• Enterprise, marginalisation and inclusion
• Enterprise with people who have been harmed in their personal relationships, communities or by wider systems and services
• Enterprise and innovation in social care
• Enterprise and innovation in social work
• Enterprise, sociology and systems change
• Research impact and social science commercialisation
• Participatory and engaged research
• Interdisciplinary scholarship

The successful candidate will support impact, implementation and commercialisation activities in collaboration with Professor Pablo Muñoz, Director of the Social Science Enterprise Lab and Co-PI in the Global Centre for Contextual Safeguarding.

Key responsibilities:

• To pursue research that is high quality in terms of originality, significance and rigour.
• To develop clear plans for the pursuit of national and international funding opportunities to support research and end-user engagement.
• To play a role in relevant teaching and research supervision, and contribute to ongoing curriculum development.
• Contribute to enhancing the quality of the research environment in the Department, the wider University and beyond through collaborative research activity.
• Demonstrate a willingness to contribute to the administrative work, citizenship and values of the Department.
• To deliver lectures, seminars and tutorials at undergraduate and taught postgraduate levels, including in ways that integrate Contextual Safeguarding, as well as engaging in related activity such as assessment.
• To develop new learning and development content, including CPD and post-graduate content to scale Contextual Safeguarding across new sectors
• To fully engage in and enhance the values of the Department and the Global Centre for Contextual Safeguarding.
• To contribute to attracting and supervising research students, and to enhance the Department and the GCCS's commitment to its vibrant and inclusive postgraduate culture.
• To carry out other duties as specified by the Head of Department and the GCCS's leads

Global Centre for Contextual Safeguarding

In September 2025 Durham University will launch the Global Centre for Contextual Safeguarding. The GCCS, led by Durham's Sociology Department, Business School and School of Education, will bring together departments across the four faculties of the University to: transform how societies understand and deliver services that safeguard young people beyond their homes; create systems that look beyond the capacity of parents to protect children; and build sustainable partnerships in which safeguarding is truly everybody's business. This is not a Centre simply focused on researching and improving existing safeguarding practices; it is instead committed to a radical transformation in how safeguarding is conceptualised, studied, and practiced, and by whom. The Centre will achieve this by building a critical interdisciplinary effort to cement an emergent field of research. It will implement that research in collaboration with others to reform policy and legal frameworks, and the organisational practices, that govern the provision and evaluation of services around the world. It will scale that implementation through commercial partnerships with industries beyond traditional safeguarding partnerships; providing various routes to learn about Contextual Safeguarding that transcends sector boundaries. From hospitality and sports, to social care and youth justice, the GCCS will involve a range of organisations in implementing Contextual Safeguarding locally, nationally and internationally. The post holder will play a critical role in translating evidence from the GCCS programme into products that meet the needs of a wider range of sectors. They will also lead on identifying opportunities to sustain the GCCS through the ethical development of commercial outputs; developing commercial approaches through which we can maintain the commitment of those involved in Contextual Safeguarding to invest in sectors and communities and the forefront of protecting young people, but whose resource to do so is often limited or constrained.

Durham University Business School

Dynamic and vibrant, Durham University Business School is one of Durham University's four Faculties and is comprised of four research-intensive departments: Accounting, Economics, Finance, and Management and ...