The internship will be hosted within the Scottish Government’s Office of the Chief Economic Adviser (OCEA), specifically in the Directorate for Chief Economist’s OCEA: Business Economic & Sector (BES) team. This team provides economic analysis support to DG Economy, working alongside policy advisers, statisticians, and researchers. The internship will involve providing analytical and data analysis support for the delivery of the Scottish Government’s National Innovation Strategy, with project details tailored to the intern’s skills and the team's specific needs.
The main project will likely account for two-thirds of the internship, focusing on the analysis of key growth and innovation driving sectors across the Scottish economy, identifying performance trends, barriers to growth, and potential outcomes that could arise from targeted and effective support. The remaining third of the internship will provide additional support to priority projects across the team, ensuring a well-rounded and enriching experience.
The project would be ideal for aspiring data analysts who are eager to use new technologies in data analysis and visualisation to bring ne value to existing data collections. Interns will create reproducible analytical pipelines (RAP) to understand and communicate a fair and unbiased understanding of the performance of Scotland's key sectors, primarily by gathering evidence from various data sources, including official statistics and third-party inputs. The evidence should then be organised into a data repository for creating and updating RAP dashboards, using appropriate tools (i.e. R/R Markdown or Power BI, etc.).
The intern will apply technical expertise in data analysis, addressing complex, multi-dimensional issues, to produce interactive dashboards or briefings that succinctly summarise the performance of Scotland's key growth and innovation sectors, providing a valuable resource for the Scottish Government to use in supporting economic development policy, implementation and monitoring.
The OCEA: Business Economic & Sector Business (BES) team invites expressions of interest from students with an interest in applying their data analysis knowledge and skills and proficient technical experience to contribute to the work of DG Economy. We welcome applications from students in any social science discipline.