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This is a graduate-level role at Emotive Strategy Studio, part of Source Nine Strategic Insights, working directly with the Founder to deliver high-quality research and strategy projects for brands and agencies including TUI, McCain, Molton Brown, adam&eveDDB, the7stars, and Havas.
You’ll be using a distinctive approach to understanding people called the Empathy Framework (winner of the 2025 MRS Award for Research Innovation of the Year), grounded in the latest behavioural and cognitive science.
Day-to-day, you’ll design research projects, conduct analysis using AI-assisted workflows, build audience and behavioural insights, and write strategic reports that solve real business problems.
This is a rare opportunity to do graduate-level strategy work, of a kind usually only available in London, here in Cornwall.
You will work from St. Agnes in Cornwall with occasional remote working.
Starting Salary: £28,000 per annum
Purpose of the Role
The purpose of the role is to support the delivery of research and strategy work for agency and brand clients. You will work alongside the Founder to take a client brief, define the problem behaviourally and emotionally, design and execute research projects, collect and analyse data using the Empathy Framework and supporting theory, and produce reports and strategic outputs that provide exceptional clarity whilst telling powerful stories.
The work is intellectually demanding. It requires the ability to hold complexity without collapsing it, to think rigorously about why people do what they do, and to translate that thinking into clear, useful, written outputs.
This role will give you direct exposure to a way of thinking about people and brands that is becoming increasingly influential in the industry, and it will equip you with skills that are highly transferable to a wide range of strategic careers.
Duties and Responsibilities
Typical project tasks include:
Reading and absorbing client briefs, agency documentation, audience data, and supporting research; building an accurate understanding of the problem to be solved
Defining the business problem in behavioural and emotional terms using the Empathy Framework
Designing research projects: identifying what data is needed, where it can be found, and how it should be analysed
Conducting AI-assisted desk research and analysis using tools such as Claude and other large language models
Qualitative Research: Over time you’ll be trained to design and carry out interviews, focus groups and ethnographies.
Building audience profiles, emotional needs analyses, and predictive models of behaviour drawing on the framework and its supporting evidence base
Producing written outputs: reports, slide decks, and other strategic documents that clients use in their pitches and strategy work
Maintaining accurate documentation of project work and methodology
Tools and systems you will use:
AI assistants (Claude and others) for research, analysis, and writing support
The Empathy Framework and its supporting knowledge base
Google Workspace
Project documentation and version control practices
Various web-based research tools and data sources
Training and Development – What Skills and Experience will this Opportunity Provide?
This role provides exceptional training and development for someone interested in strategy, research, behavioural science, or cognitive science applied to commercial problems. The specific skills and experiences you will gain include:
Working knowledge of the Empathy Framework, an MRS-award-winning approach to understanding people
Practical fluency in active inference, the theory of constructed emotion, and predictive processing as applied to human behaviour
Advanced AI-assisted research and analysis skills, working with tools like Claude as part of a professional workflow
Project management experience across multiple concurrent strategy projects
Strategic writing skills: producing reports, decks, and analytical outputs to a professional standard
Direct exposure to how the strategy and research function works inside brands and agencies
Experience contributing to pitch work for major clients
The ability to translate complex theory into practical commercial outputs
For the right candidate, there is potential for the role to develop into a permanent position at the end of the 12 months.
Support Available
Weekly one-to-one meetings with the Founder
On-the-job training in the Empathy Framework, supporting theory, and project methodology
Shadowing on client work before taking on independent workstreams
Ongoing mentorship throughout the placement
The Benefits
25 days annual leave plus bank holidays
Workplace pension scheme
Hybrid working pattern: office-based during initial training, then home working on Mondays and Fridays with in-office working Tuesday to Thursday
A dedicated equipment budget for the home working setup
Professional development budget for relevant training, conferences, or qualifications
About You (Person Specification)
Skills
Essential:
Strong analytical thinking. You can take a complex problem, break it down, identify what matters, and work through it systematically
Excellent Problem Solving. You can think about your thinking, variables and their relationships. You can work things out.
Strong written communication. You can produce clear, well-structured prose that conveys complex ideas without losing the reader
Ability to read and absorb dense material quickly: research papers, client documents, data reports
Comfort with ambiguity and the willingness to push through when the answer isn’t obvious
Preferred:
Familiarity with AI tools such as Claude (including Claude Code, CoWork), ideally with some experience using them for analysis and/or tool building.
Some experience with research methods (qualitative or quantitative) at university or in placement work
Personal Qualities and Attributes
We are looking for someone who:
Is kind, thoughtful and curious.
Thinks carefully about how they think. You notice when you’re reasoning poorly, when you’re being lazy, when an argument has a hole in it
Is genuinely interested in people. Why they do what they do, how they feel, what shapes their behaviour
Has good emotional intelligence. You can hold difficult conversations, read situations accurately, and work well with people whose views differ from yours
Is resilient and persistent. You don’t crumble when the work is hard or when you have to redo something
Has intellectual humility. You’re willing to be wrong, to update your views, and to push back on your own thinking
Cares about the substance of the work, not just the output
Knowledge
Essential:
A working understanding of how to construct an argument, evaluate evidence, and write clearly
An interest in psychology, behavioural science, cognitive science, philosophy of mind, or similar fields, even if your degree is in something else
Preferred:
Some prior exposure to behavioural science, psychology, marketing, strategy, or related disciplines
Some familiarity with AI tools and how to work with them effectively
Prior Experience
You should have prior work experience.
We are looking for someone who has worked before university, during university, or on placement, and who understands what it means to hold down a job. This experience demonstrates reliability, professionalism, and the practical skills that come from working alongside other people.
Any prior experience in research, strategy, marketing, communications, or related fields is woll be prioritised but where real passion is present, we can look beyond direct experience to date and see potential instead. The same applies to experience with AI tools.
You must have valid right-to-work documents with you for verification if appointed, as copies are not accepted.
About the Company
Emotive Strategy Studio is the brand and strategy arm of Source Nine Strategic Insights, working with leading consumer brands and creative agencies on research and strategy projects. Our clients include TUI, McCain, and Molton Brown on the brand side, and adam&eveDDB, the7stars, and Havas on the agency side. We work with global clients on problems that range from new product strategy to pitch support.
What makes us distinctive is our approach. Rather than relying on traditional segmentation or attitudinal research, we use the Empathy Framework, our own model of making sense of people that integrates the latest thinking in behavioural and cognitive science. The Empathy Framework won the MRS Award for Research Innovation of the Year in 2025, recognising it as one of the most significant methodological developments in the research industry.
We are based in Cornwall, and this role is a rare opportunity to do the kind of high-end, graduate-level strategy work that is usually only available in London while living and working in one of the most beautiful parts of the country. You will work directly with the Founder, learning the framework and the methodology from someone who has built and continues to develop it, and you will be doing real work for real clients from day one.