Earth Fellow: Sustainability engagement and behaviour change

Grade UE05: £29,588 to £33,951 per annum, pro rata

Edinburgh Earth Initiative / Department for Social Responsibility and Sustainability

Part Time: 9 hours per week

Fixed-term: for nine months from October 2026

The Opportunity:

The Edinburgh Earth Initiative (EEI) and Department for Social Responsibility and Sustainability are looking for two postgraduate students to support embedding sustainability into the everyday behaviours, culture and habits of the wider University community. This 9-month project will focus on increasing participation in the Sustainability Action Reward Platform, and the Sustainability Champions Network.

This post will be appointed at Grade UE05, step 1 which is £29,588 per annum, pro rata (£16.21 per hour).

Earth Fellowships are only open to current postgraduate and PhD students at the University of Edinburgh based in the UK. Please do not apply if you are not a current University of Edinburgh student.

Your skills and attributes for success:

We welcome applicants from any discipline. You do not need a sustainability background.

• Current University of Edinburgh postgraduate (masters) student in the '26/'27 academic year.
• Confident and approachable communicator, comfortable speaking with individuals and groups.
• Familiarity with the development of digital resources and communications, particularly across the Microsoft Suite (SharePoint, Outlook and Teams) as well as social media channels including Instagram.
• An interest in sustainability and a baseline understanding of the principles behind sustainable behaviours, with a willingness to deepen this knowledge through the role.
• Enthusiasm for in-person engagement and developing practical behaviour-change skills.
• Ability to represent programmes professionally in busy, public, or informal campus settings in person and online.
• Organised and reliable, with the ability to manage tasks that vary across events, engagement and light communications.
• Curious about what motivates different people and willing to adapt approaches based on what works.
• Comfortable working both independently and collaboratively within a supportive team.

As an Earth Fellow, you will be joining a diverse, fun and dynamic team of researchers, students and staff all working together to address the global climate emergency. As part of the Earth Fellows programme, you will have access to co-working space, exciting networking and personal development opportunities and opportunities to contribute towards partnerships and solutions for climate change on a global scale.

Earth Fellows work on individual and team-based projects which contribute to the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh Earth Initiative's work on climate change research-led impact, innovation, engagement, and teaching.

As a valued member of our team you can expect:

An exciting, positive, creative, challenging and rewarding place to work alongside the Edinburgh Earth Initiative team and Earth Fellows community which includes undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD students as well as the wider student community, academics, professional services, and global partners working on climate and environmental change. We give you support, nurture your talent and reward success.

You will benefit from a competitive reward package and a wide range of staff benefits, which includes a generous holiday entitlement, a defined benefits pension scheme, staff discounts, family-friendly initiatives, flexible working and much more.

Championing equality, diversity, and inclusion

The University of Edinburgh holds a Silver Athena SWAN award in recognition of our commitment to advance gender equality in higher education. We are members of the Race Equality Charter and we are also Stonewall Scotland Diversity Champions, actively promoting LGBT equality.

Prior to any employment commencing with the University you will be required to evidence your right to work in the UK.

Key dates to note

The closing date for applications is 16 September 2026.

Unless stated otherwise the closing time for applications is 11:59pm GMT. If you are applying outside the UK the closing time on our adverts automatically adjusts to your browser's local time zone.

Interviews will be held during September/October 2026.