Impact Investments Intern - Market research - Nesta

Job description

Impact Investments Intern - Market research

Working across the Impact Investments Team at Nesta

Salary: London Living Wage £343.12 per week (£9.15 per hour)

Location: Chancery Lane, London

Term: 6 months - Fri 9th October 2015 to Friday 8th April 2016

Hours: Full-time 37.5 per week

Deadline: 10am, Mon 21st September 2015. Any late applications will not be considered.

Nesta is looking for an Intern to work with its impact investment team to help research market opportunities to inform its impact investments strategy. Nesta Impact Investments is a £17.6m impact investment fund investing in impact driven organisations addressing big social challenges faced by older people, children and communities in the UK. The fund has made 11 investments to date and continues to seek out outstanding entrepreneurs to make further investments. This is a fantastic opportunity to gain experience in one of today’s most innovative fields of investment. You will gain exposure of some cutting edge social innovation, entrepreneurial activities, and investing for impact.

The market research activity helps to inform our overall impact investment strategy by highlighting sectors and solutions that are ripe for impact investment. We take a proactive approach to investment by identifying sectors where there is potential to have both a real and lasting social impact in the issues our fund has identified, as well as having the potential to do this in a financially sustainable way capable of generating a return on our investment.

This internship would suit someone who is naturally analytical with a strong interest in what we do. The role would involve using public data and research to contribute to our internal market reports as well as using specialist databases to report on investment activity.

As with any role at Nesta, the successful candidate will be exposed to our wider research and practical Programme activities, providing an opportunity to experience the many facets of Nesta’s work.

The Role

• Support our market analysis work by coordinating and collecting data and information;
• Help to produce presentation and reports;
• Undertake a broad range of tasks including researching and identifying sectors events, organisations and stakeholders

The Person

• Someone with an interest in innovation, entrepreneurship and/or investing for impact;
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills;
• Strong academic background;
• Self-motivated and comfortable working in small teams.

• Excellent IT skills;

About Nesta

Nesta is the UK’s leading independent expert on innovation. We exist to grow the UK’s capacity to innovate, helping to generate great ideas and bring them to life. We are independently funded with an endowment originally provided from the National Lottery and were recently granted charitable status, securing Nesta’s future independence.

We achieve our mission through a combination of four core capabilities:

• Generating new knowledge and insights about how innovation happens in the economy, society and public services, and making this knowledge available and accessible.
• Supporting skills, methods, tools and capacity to innovate, both in leading edge fields (from digital technology to creative industries) and in fields where innovation is less supported (such as local government).
• Linking diverse networks of people and organisations, and using our convening power to open up new possibilities and to help with implementation and diffusion of innovations.
• Helping fund innovative ventures, projects and programmes, particularly ones focused on solving compelling problems. We do this as an investor, a grant-giver, and through programmes that combine a mix of types of support.

Nesta has worked to develop the field of impact investment in a number of ways:

• Using our research capability to better understand the markets for investment and advisory services to social ventures, including looking at the role of Individual Investors; the role of Social Venture Intermediaries; the regulatory environment; and the demand for social finance;
• Helping to catalyse support and networks for social ventures through funding a portfolio of social venture intermediaries
• Raising an investment fund ("Nesta Impact Investment 1") to directly invest into organisations that can have a measurable, scalable and sustainable impact on the specified Outcomes of the fund.We try to act in line with a set of values that help define who we are, and how we behave to each other and the people we work with - these values are known as, 'The Nesta Way’!

How to apply

Please apply through this link only: Any questions regarding this position please contact The Careers Group University of London Internships team.

Application process: Any suitable candidates will receive a call from the Internships Team at the University of London by 22nd September 2015.

Deadline: 10am, Mon 21st September 2015