Think-tank lures Guardian's Day

PR Week UK 01-Nov-06

The Institute of Development Studies (IDS) has snapped up Media Guardian assistant editor Julia Day for a new senior comms role.

Day will become head of comms at the IDS Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability (Steps) Centre when she joins on 6 November.

The environment and development think-tank, which launched at the beginning of October, is naow in a sixth-month ‘inception phase'.

Day will take charge of targeting UK and global policy makers, development agencies, donors and the media. Her first task will be to develop Steps's comms strategy and branding ahead of a formal launch in 2007.

‘As climate-change policy hits the headlines, the need for new thinking on the environment and development has never been more urgent,' Day said.

She reports to Steps Centre director Professor Melissa Leach and is based at the University of Sussex in Brighton.