Research Assistant

Job id: 103726. Salary: £38,482 - £43,249 per annum pro rata, including London Weighting Allowance.

Posted: 08 January 2025. Closing date: 21 January 2025.

Business unit: IoPPN. Department: Health Services & Population Research.

Location: Denmark Hill Campus. Category: Research.

About Us

Overview

We are looking for a highly motivated and talented research assistant to work with Dr Gemma Knowles and team on an exciting new research project on youth mental health. The project starts in April 2025 and is funded by a 5-year Wellcome Trust Mental Health Award.

The Team

The Project

The project aims to understand and find new solutions to gender inequalities in youth mental health. We primarily seek to uncover the causal mechanisms through which sexism, misogyny, and gender inequality impact mental health during the teenage years and early adulthood. The project consists of three work packages (WPs):
WP1 and WP3 will generate novel data in new school-based cohorts.

WP2 will analyse existing data from multiple youth cohorts.

All aspects of the project, including the funding proposal, have been and will be coproduced with young people, schools, and community members.

The Role

We are looking for a research assistant to:
support and lead coproduction activities in London, for all WPs

enable close collaboration between young people in London and Tokyo, who do not share a common language

support the project leads with cross-site (UK-Japan) integration of the programme, e.g., supporting with interpretation of meetings, protocols, etc.

contribute to other research activities as required, e.g., literature reviews, writing papers, collecting data in schools

To be successful in this role, you will have:
excellent communication skills in both English and Japanese

exceptional ability to inspire, engage, and involve schools and young people from diverse backgrounds in research.

Working Hours, Working Patterns

This is a part-time position (0.3 FTE), initially for 18 months, starting 1st April 2025. Working hours/days are generally flexible. However, some out-of-hours work (e.g., evenings, early mornings, the odd weekend) may be required, e.g., to accommodate our community coproduction team, young co-researchers, and time-zone differences (Tokyo is +9hrs GMT). Coproduction activities may also necessitate in-person working during school holidays. Team members are asked to spend at least 60% of their time at the office.

Interview

About You

Essential criteria
- Master’s degree or equivalent experience in a relevant area, e.g., global mental health, epidemiology, mental health sciences
- Exceptional communication skills in both English and Japanese (written and verbal)
- Experience of engaging and involving young people from diverse backgrounds in designing or delivering research
- Excellent ability to create inclusive, friendly, and supportive environments in which young people feel valued, respected, and supported
- Strong quantitative research skills and ability to communicate quant methods and research findings to young people
- Experience of juggling multiple deadlines and effectively prioritizing tasks
- Excellent ability to work well in a team
- Experience of conducting literature reviews

Desirable criteria
- Experience of working in a multi-disciplinary or international team
- Experience of working with or in schools
- Good understanding or awareness of youth mental health research in Japan, e.g., trends and inequalities in youth mental health, current challenges and opportunities, etc.

Further Information