Graduate Research Assistant

**Salary**

The starting salary will be from £33,951 on Grade E, depending on qualifications and experience.

** Contractual hours**

36.5

** Package**

Generous holiday allowances, flexible working, pension scheme and relocation package (if applicable).

** Job category/type**

Research

** Date posted**

06/11/2025

** Job reference**

R92154

**Faculty of Health and Life Sciences**

The department of Psychology are looking to recruit a Graduate Research Assistant in AI to Digital Mental Health Solutions.

This new full-time post is available from 1 December 2025 until 1 December 2026 in the Department of Psychology.

This role can be based anywhere in the UK or it can be offered under a hybrid working arrangement - some time on campus and some from home.

**About the role**
We are looking for an innovative Graduate Research Assistant to pioneer the intersection of Generative AI and behavioural science, aiming to transform mental health care. You would join a team aspiring to leverage cutting-edge AI models to refine and elevate the efficiency of mental health interventions.

Our objectives are two-fold: to study how AI systems can cost-effectively optimise mental health training and support, and to harmonise AI models with human treatment delivery to produce an ethical, widely acceptable and scalable treatment model.

The **PATH-AI**:P**sychological **A**dvancements **T**hrough **H**uman-**AI** Collaboration Group is an international group of leading mental health researchers and clinicians focussed on using technology to produce novel solutions to global mental health challenges. Our members include senior academics and researchers from Exeter, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSCR), Oxford, Bristol, UCLA, and Harvard.

Our top priorities are to:
Use ML/AI to characterise and evaluate models of mental health provider skill/competency and predict optimal treatment performance indicators.

- Drive a step-change in scalable mental health provision using AI systems to create novel workforce efficiencies. We will utilise ML/AI to ensure rapid, cost-effective, high-impact workforce solutions to international gaps in specialist mental health providers.
- Facilitate information exchange. We will share information between our established national and international channels. These include policymakers, NGO’s, international partners, private companies, and the broader public.

**About you**

Applicants will be educated to first degree level or possess an equivalent qualification/experience in a related field of study or equivalent experience and be able to demonstrate sufficient knowledge in the discipline and of research methods and techniques to work within established research programmes.

The post-holder will help coordinate research in this groundbreaking area, by evaluating the efficacy of AI models (especially large language models [LLMs]) in capturing the nuances of therapist competencies and predicting client treatment outcomes, using existing real-world data from mental health treatment. Results will be summarised for internal and external dissemination. Your contributions will be pivotal in shaping this research agenda, with the work being shared both within our research community and beyond.

**Please ensure you read the Job Description and Person Specification for full details of this role by clicking on the attachment.**

**The University of Exeter**

We are a member of the prestigious Russell Group of research-intensive universities and in the top 200 universities in the world (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024 and QS World University Ranking 2024). We combine world-class teaching with world-class research, achieving a Gold rating in the Teaching Excellence Framework Award 2023, underpinned by Gold ratings for Student Experience and Student Outcomes.

Our world-leading research impact has grown more than any other Russell Group university in recent years, and we are home to some of the world’s most influential researchers, seeking to answer some of the most fundamental issues facing humankind today. More than 99 percent of our research is of international quality and 47 percent is world-leading (2021 Research Excellence Framework).

We encourage proactive engagement with industry, business and community partners to enhance the impact of research and education and improve the employability of our students. Read about our world leading research - Green Futures and how we are transforming education for a changing world. We are located in a beautiful part of the country and Exeter (a fast growing tech hub) is one of only a few UK cities to have been designated as a UNESCO Creative City

**Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Commitment**

We are committed to ensuring reasonable adjustments are available for interviews and workplaces.

With over 30,000 students and 7,000 staff from 150 different countries we offer a diverse and engaging environment where our diversity is celebra