Research Associate

**Salary**: £34,866 per annum (pro rata)

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 03 February 2025

**The Role**

This is an exciting opportunity with responsibility for preliminary research for a large research funding bid (over £750K). The research for this post builds on the findings from a British Academy
- and Nuffield Foundation-funded project, Beyond the School Gates. This project aimed to investigate how children’s perceptions, experiences, and attitudes contribute to community integration (see final project report here). For this role, you would contribute to new interdisciplinary research, which focuses on collecting children’s first-hand accounts of community integration in local schools in the Northeast of England, including specialist schools for children who cannot access mainstream education.

You will work closely with Dr Emily Murphy, an expert in childhood studies with extensive international experience working with children’s archival materials. As well, you can expect to work with key partners from the previous Beyond School Gates project, alongside emerging partners for the new research bid related to this post. These partners include, but are not limited to: the Linking Network, the British Library, Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Literature, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government.

You will primarily be using archival research methodologies to understand children’s experience of community integration in the Northeast of England for this post, focusing on developing interdisciplinary methodologies for ethically gathering these accounts from children alongside long-term and sustainable methods for archiving and making this work visible. For this reason, the successful RA will have the option to support final dissemination work on the Beyond School Gates project, particularly work on a digital archive of children’s school materials, to gain training in this area and develop a stronger understanding of the previous research that serves as the foundation for this new project.

We are committed to creating and maintaining a fair and inclusive working environment.

The role is offered on a part time basis and is available for 3 months from the start date.

For more information about the School of English Literature, Language, and Linguistics, please click here.

SELLL holds an Athena SWAN bronze award, in recognition of our commitment to advancing gender equality.

**Key Accountabilities**
- To conduct field work at partner schools in our target areas within the NE (esp. Newcastle/Gateshead)
- To contribute to engagement/impact activities relating to the project’s partnerships with Seven Stories and other organisations in the heritage sector, with the aim of collecting additional original materials from children to add to our archival dataset
- Aid in the facilitation and/or observation of school activities related to engagement activities for the project. These will be located in the NE, with a primary focus on the Newcastle/Gateshead area, and will include specialist schools in hospital settings

**The Person**

**Knowledge, Skills and Experience**
- Research interests which demonstrably align with the focus of the outlined research of the project on children’s archives, as well as an ability to think about and make connections to the larger research aims of the project which look at sustainable ways to give more visibility to children’s voices on issues relating to ‘home’ and ‘belonging’. One major goal of this work is to shape policy on community integration that affects children’s lives
- Firm and feasible plans for carrying out work within schools (to be aided by Dr Emily Murphy who will provide mentorship in this area)
- Understanding of the importance of the wider significance of research on children’s archives and/or histories of migration and community integration in the UK
- Excellent organisational abilities and time management skills, and the ability to prioritise workload and work to deadlines. In particular, the applicant should show they have the skills for collecting and documenting archival material
- Excellent oral and written communication skills with a wide range of different audiences
- Willingness to undertake travel within NE England, as well as any online or in-person project meetings

**Desirable**
- Experience working in schools and with schoolchildren and teachers within this setting. DBS certification is beneficial though not required to begin the post
- Experience working with vulnerable communities (e.g. refugees or recently arrived immigrants, children in hospital care for extended periods, etc.)
- Experience of contributing to a project team, commensurate with stage of career. Priority will be given to those with expe