Sector Analysis: Using data blending and dashboards to summarise economic performance

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.

Developing analysis and presentation of results from the Scottish Health Survey

The internship is based in the Scottish Health Survey team within the Health & Social Care Analysis Division. The team is moving analysis of the survey from SAS to R and the project involves setting up programmes in R to analyse a wide range of the survey results, prepare tables and charts and output these in accessible formats. The candidate should have some experience of using R, though we do already have some code that can be adapted.

Improving impact assessments to support the use of evidence in Scottish Government policy making

This internship forms part of an exciting cross-government programme to enhance how policymakers take account of the impacts of their decisions on different people, organisations or places. Working in a small team led by Chief Social Policy Adviser Professor Linda Bauld, but engaging with multiple policy and analytical areas, the candidate will contribute to a high profile programme of actions to develop the system of impact assessments within the Scottish Government. The team has a strong track record of hosting successful SGSSS internships. 

Trust in government: building an evidence base for Scotland

Scottish Government has access to a range of data sources that provide direct and indirect evidence on levels of trust in government and potential contributing factors. This internship will focus on analysis that draws these together to build up a picture of levels of trust in government – and drivers of this – across different areas, demographics and protected characteristics in Scotland. We are interested in evidence from both quantitative and qualitative data sources, and there may be opportunity to carry out new qualitative work. It is intended that this project will result in a publishable report that provides a literature review of existing evidence on trust and sets out new analysis resulting from the project. Evidence based recommendations for improving Scotland’s evidence base on trust in government will also be welcomed, along with a presentation to relevant Scottish Government staff and stakeholders.

Reactive project in support of Drugs Policy and the National Mission on Drugs

SGSSS internships present invaluable opportunities for analytical outputs to be produced that are reactive and supportive to rapidly changing policy needs. As such, the outputs of these internships are likely to be of great relevance and value to the work of policy colleagues and present opportunity to have real impact on decision making. With this in mind, we will develop the specific focus of this project closer to when the internship is due to start. We will also try to offer a choice of the project that they undertake and ensure the project is shaped around the skills of the candidate. Previous research projects have included evidence/data reviews, surveys, mapping exercises and interviewing.