Current opportunities
The Reimagining the Economy Project has various openings for current Harvard students, to support our research, strategy, and products. While each role requires some specialized skills, all roles require strong interpersonal skills and a positive attitude. Time commitment is typically 5-10 hours a week. We’re looking to hire students for the following projects in Fall 2024. Please apply using this form.
Research translation: The Reimagining the Economy Project will be disseminating insights from new research in industrial policy, local and place-based economic development, and the energy transition, to a broader audience. Research Assistants will engage deeply with a particular research paper, peruse related work, and translate the key ideas into blog posts and other products for policymakers and the public. Candidates should have a working knowledge of economic principles and American economic policy. They should be able to understand and interpret economic research and have excellent writing skills -- especially for non-academic audiences.
U.S. place-based economic development organizations: This project will focus on the role that different types of local orchestrators play in facilitating economic change, including the energy transition. We hope to unpack their histories, trajectories, capabilities, metrics of success, impact, and leadership. We’re interested in understanding the various roles that these entities play and how they collaborate with other institutions. Research Assistants will review existing literature on regional economic development organizations, including local news articles and reports; interview practitioners in the field; document findings and code insights; and write case studies. Candidates should have strong qualitative research skills, attention to detail, ability to navigate ambiguity, and excellent writing and interpersonal skills.
Industrial policy in developing countries: This project will study the design and implementation of MSME support policies. We’re interested in studying how different countries are approaching MSME policy, the underlying institutions and state capacity considerations, and mechanisms to measure and evaluate impact. Candidates should have strong qualitative research skills, attention to detail, a background in institutional arrangements and state capacity, and the ability to navigate ambiguity.
Product: We’re building a new data visualization platform on local labor markets that we want to test among different user groups, add/modify product features, and complement with data-based stories. Students in this role will support the Product Team to 1) create a user research strategy, 2) devise and implement an editorial strategy for content to support the platform, 3) assist with UI/UX research, and 4) assist with platform rollout. Candidates should have a background (or interest) in product management, experience working with Tableau and Stata, and strong writing skills (for those interested in the editorial strategy and data stories).
Beta test “The Economy in Place”: We want to recruit a team of students to beta test our upcoming data viz platform. This isn’t an RA opportunity, as much as it is an opportunity to be a part of a focus group to provide us feedback.
- Community colleges: This project - a partnership with the American Institute of Research - will investigate community colleges that graduate students with workforce credentials of value, through qualitative interviews and focus groups with college leaders to better understand what may be contributing to their ability to produce these outcomes. Our goal is to identify generate hypotheses about the determinants of strong workforce pathways that can be tested more rigorously. We are seeking individuals with strong qualitative methodological training that can join our qualitative team to conduct these interviews, code and analyze the data, and identify themes. Research Assistants will assist in outreach and scheduling for recruitment of study participants, facilitate interviews and focus group, code and analyze thematic findings, and support summative report writing.