King's College London

THIS VACANCY IS OPEN TO INTERNAL APPLICANTS ONLY

About us:

We look forward to welcoming the successful candidate to the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health (CSMH; www.kcl.ac.uk/csmh) and the Health Service and Population Research Department (HSPR; www.kcl.ac.uk/hspr), at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London.

About the role:

Overview

We are looking for a highly motivated and talented research assistant to work on Bridging Divides, an exciting new research project on youth mental health. The project started in April 2025 and is funded by a 5-year Wellcome Trust Mental Health Award.

The Team

We are a multidisciplinary team based in London, Tokyo, and Mannheim. The successful candidate will join the London team and collaborate across sites. We are a friendly, supportive, passionate, and hard-working group. We place great value on working with young people from diverse backgrounds to deliver relevant, engaging, inclusive, and impactful research.

The Project

Bridging Divides 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 an enthusiastic and talented research assistant to:

• support and lead school-based data collection for WP1 and WP3, including surveys, interviews, and biological (saliva, hair, finger-prick blood samples) and passive sensing (actigraphy) data.
• support and lead on processes relating to data collection, e.g., preparation of equipment for (and after) data collection sessions, data entry and data cleaning, participant tracking and management, linking data across WPs, delivering presentations to school staff and students, and following consent and safeguarding protocols.
• develop their own independent research proposals (e.g., PhD studentships or research fellowship applications).
• contribute to other research activities as required, e.g., literature reviews, qualitative data analysis, writing and presenting papers and research reports.
• support and lead on youth engagement and coproduction activities and school-based workshops.

To be successful in this role, you will have:

• exceptional communication skills and the ability to inspire, engage, and involve schools and young people from diverse backgrounds in research.
• experience of previous youth engagement or school-based work.
• ability to work across multiple research streams, or in other large-scale projects with multiple stakeholders.
• ability and willingness to work outside of regular office hours, including early mornings (e.g., for school-based data collection) and the occasional weekend (e.g., for youth engagement and involvement activities).

We are keen to support the postholder with PhD/fellowship applications and will work with all team members to develop personalised training, support, and development plans.

Working Hours, Working Patterns

This is full time post for 24 months starting 1st November 2025. You will be offered a fixed-term contract until 31st October 2027, with the possibility of extension.

Some out-of-hours work (e.g., evenings, early mornings, the odd weekend) may be required, e.g., to accommodate school needs, our community coproduction team, young co-researchers, and time-zone differences (for meetings with collaborators in Tokyo, +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

Interviews are expected to take place at our Strand office in central London during the week commencing 6th October 2025.

About you:

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1. Master’s degree in a relevant area, e.g., global mental health, mental health studies, epidemiology.
2. Experience of engaging and involving young people from diverse backgrounds in designing or delivering research (e.g., working with peer-researchers and advisory groups).
3. Excellent ability to create inclusive, friendly, and supportive environments in which young people feel valued, respected, and supported.
4. Experience of conducting qualitative and quantitative research.
5. Experience of juggling multiple deadlines and effectively prioritizing tasks.
6. Excellent ability to work well in a multidisciplinary or international team and on a fast-paced project.
7. Experience of working with or in schools.
8. Experience using tracking software and planners (e.g., MS Excel, Notion) or other participant database management.
9. Ability to communicate confidential information in a sensitive manner and identify and respond to potential safeguarding concerns.
10. Good understanding of research governance frameworks (e.g., ethics, data protection).

Desirable criteria

1. Experience of conducting literature reviews.
2. Quantitative research skills and experience using relevant research software (e.g., Stata, R)
3. Qualitative research skills and experience using relevant research software (e.g., NVivo)

In your application, please include a supporting statement that lists all criteria and outlines your experience/skills against each.

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click “Apply Now”. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further information:

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.

Interviews are provisionally due to be held week commencing 6th October 2025.