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Why join Our World in Data?
Research and data are crucial to making progress against the large problems the world is facing and to build a better future. At Our World in Data, we make research and data on the world’s largest problems accessible and understandable.
The problems the world faces are very diverse – global poverty, CO₂ emissions, child mortality, mental health, and many more. Our World in Data readers who are concerned about these problems should be able to rely on our compilation of research, our database, and our visualizations to understand them clearly, and learn how it is possible to make progress against them.
All data on Our World in Data is available for download, all visualisations are Creative Commons licensed, and all tools are open source.
Join us if you are committed to helping us achieve this mission!
Impact
We reach a large audience (over 5 million visitors every month) and we rank within the top few results on Google Search for queries including ‘CO₂ emissions’, ‘population growth’, ‘global poverty’, ‘COVID-19 vaccinations’, and many others. Our readers include researchers, journalists, teachers, policymakers, students, and engineers looking for the data and research that enables them to do their work.
Our work is cited and referenced in hundreds of articles, reports, books, lectures, videos and talks every year, including high-profile publications from academics and multilateral organizations such as the UN. 2020 our rate of academic citations was above 15 per day and citations in the popular media are even more common.
During the pandemic hundreds of media outlets cite our work daily and all major international organizations rely on the data that we bring together. Dr. Anthony Fauci has used our charts to answer questions about the COVID-19 pandemic in the US Congress, and our work has been used by the White House as well.
It is very motivating for us to work on this publication because we receive great feedback from readers. Many teachers and professors around the world get in touch because they use our work as assigned reading or rely on our visualizations for their in-class presentations – high-school teacher Matt Cone wrote about it here. Professionals in international organizations, governments, and NGOs rely on our work regularly to understand the challenges ahead.
We have even heard from medics and psychologists who use our work to help their patients and give them a more fact-based, positive attitude towards the world – Dr Jill Gordon wrote about how she uses Our World in Data in her work here.
But we are far from achieving the impact we can have. Our main constraint is that we are a small team; this is why we are looking for new talented colleagues to join us. There is a lot more we can do, in all areas of our work – research, writing, web development and high-impact collaborations. This is why we want to work with you.
What is it like to work for Our World in Data?
Mission and impact: The mission of this work is our motivation to do it: we are committed to making progress against the world’s largest problems; to do so we need research and data to be available and accessible; and we believe that our work on this has a large positive impact in bringing us closer to a better future.
Team: We are a lovely bunch of people with an overwhelming passion for what we do. Well, of course we are a bit biased here. But it’s not an exaggeration to say that we would still want to work on this publication even if we weren’t paid for it (we know this is true because in the past we weren’t paid for this work). We are a small team trying to have a large impact: this means each of us has to take on large projects and lead them. We enjoy working together and have a lot of respect for each other’s work, knowledge, skills, and personalities. Outside of work we are good friends.
Flexibility: The type of work we do can be done from anywhere, anytime. We are currently a global team – this lets us find the best people in the world without a geographical constraint. We are in constant contact electronically.
Audience: We receive tremendous support and engagement from our readers. The feedback and discussion that our content generates creates a mutual learning experience between us and our readers. Unfortunately, mutual respect is not always a given online and sometimes you need to have a thick skin. Nonetheless, it is true that close to 100% of all feedback is constructive and respectful, and we find this very motivating. It makes our work much better in the process.
Contacts and collaboration: We are a unique project with a wide reach, and we bridge the gap between academia and high-level policy and international journalism; this means we often work with fantastic people and impactful institutions.
Learning: We learn every day. By studying the data, working through the research, and having discussions with the other members of the team, readers and collaborators, we continually re-evaluate and challenge our understanding. It is a personal goal for all of us to understand our world a bit better every day. This makes working on Our World in Data an exciting journey for everyone in the team.
We are always keen to hear from people passionate about our mission. No matter what your skills are, if you believe you can support our work let us know how. Feel free to get in touch at jobs@ourworldindata.org with a copy of your CV and a one-page proposal outlining (i) what you would like to work on (the more specific, the better) (ii) why you think this is important for us at OWID, and (iii) why you think you are the right person to work on this.