Assistant Professor (Research & Education)

The School of Education invites candidates with a specialism in safeguarding and child protection in an educational context to join the Global Centre for Contextual Safeguarding (GCCS). Research experience in safeguarding and child protection in education is essential, this may also align with the School's Thematic Research Clusters, particularly the research areas of international and cross-cultural education, digital education and online harm or teacher education and development. The successful candidate will contribute to development of education and training programmes within the GCCS working with interdisciplinary colleagues (Professor Carlene Firmin- Co-PI Sociology, Professor Pablo Munoz- Co-PI Business & Enterprise, Dr Rosie Ridgway Co-PI Education) as we develop our online training and professional development offer. Practitioner experience in working with children and young people, in schools or in education related contexts would be beneficial.

This post offers an exciting opportunity to make a major contribution to the development of internationally excellent research and teaching while allowing unrivalled opportunities to progress and embed your career in an exciting and progressive institution.

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In September 2025 Durham University will launch the Global Centre for Contextual Safeguarding (GCCS). 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, which 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.