Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Comparative Political Economy of Market Competition

Responsibilities Common to all Three Posts

• Research delivery
• Design, plan and deliver the research programme for the assigned component within the 33-month timetable, in consultation with the Principal Investigator.
• Conduct primary and secondary research using the methods specified for the component, including the collection, coding, management and analysis of qualitative and/or quantitative material.
• Design and conduct semi-structured elite interviews, including topic guides, participant recruitment, transcription and analysis.
• Secure and maintain research ethics approval and manage data in line with University policy, funder requirements and applicable data protection law.
• Maintain transparent and reproducible research records, including search protocols, coding frameworks and analytical decisions.
• Publication and dissemination
• Lead the drafting of approximately two to three peer-reviewed articles from the component, and contribute as co-author to cross-component publications.
• Draft two to three policy briefs or public-facing essays translating findings for policy and general audiences.
• Contribute chapter drafts and analytical input to the project monograph.
• Present findings at academic conferences, project workshops and policy events.
• Contribute to digital dissemination, including short-form video explainers, the project Substack and the Panmure House podcast, working with the House’s digital media coordinator.
• Integration and collaboration
• Contribute substantively to monthly full-team meetings and quarterly integration workshops, including preparation of the agreed integration deliverable for each workshop.
• Engage critically with the work of the other two components, attending colleagues’ presentations and providing constructive feedback outside one’s own primary expertise.
• Pursue co-authorship across components where intellectually appropriate .
• Events and engagement
• Contribute to the intellectual design and delivery of the four project workshops (Edinburgh, Washington DC, Asia and London), including identification of participants, preparation of materials and drafting of proceedings summaries.
• Build and maintain academic, policy and practitioner networks relevant to the component.
• Contribute to the wider intellectual life of Panmure House through seminars and public events.

Comparative Political Economy of Market Competition

Post-specific duties

• Design and execute a systematic review protocol following established social science review standards, including comprehensive searches of Web of Science, Scopus, EconLit and Google Scholar and transparent inclusion and exclusion criteria.
• Code a large corpus of studies for sector, competition indicators (for example concentration measures, mark-ups, entry and exit), institutional factors and time frame.
• Conduct meta-analytic synthesis where comparable quantitative measures exist, and thematic synthesis of qualitative findings.
• Undertake secondary data analysis drawing on sources such as OECD Competition Trends, World Bank Enterprise Surveys and competition authority databases, and produce comparative visualisations of concentration, entry barriers and merger activity.
• Conduct approximately 15 to 20 semi-structured interviews with scholars of Chinese markets, industrial organisation specialists and competition economists.
• Draft short sectoral vignettes illustrating broader patterns for integration into policy briefs.

Essential Criteria

Desirable Criteria

How to Apply

• Applications can be submitted up to midnight (UK time) on Sunday 27th September 2026.
• We expect interviews to take place on 01 October 2026.
• Heriot-Watt University is committed to securing equality of opportunity in employment and to the creation of an environment in which individuals are selected, trained, promoted, appraised, and otherwise treated on the sole basis of their relevant merits and abilities. Equality and diversity are all about maximising potential and creating a culture of inclusion for all.
• Heriot-Watt University values diversity across our university community and welcomes applications from all sectors of society, particularly from underrepresented groups. For more information, please see our website https://www.hw.ac.uk/uk/services/equality diversity.htm and also our award-winning work in Disability Inclusive Science Careers https://disc.hw.ac.uk/ .
• Use our total rewards calculator: https://www.hw.ac.uk/about/work/total-rewards-calculator.htm to see the value of benefits provided by Heriot-Watt University.

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