King's College London

About us:

In April 2024, IoPPN, King’s College London established a national PHI UK Population Mental Health Consortium (PMHC) with a focus on the upstream prevention of mental ill health, funded by UKRI. This post will be situated at KCL, working with and across this large, disseminated UK-wide partnership spanning 10+ universities and other organisations across the country, alongside people with lived experience of mental illness.

About the role:

This is an exciting opportunity for a postdoctoral researcher, with a strong background in public health and mental health research and epidemiology, and with expertise in quantitative and qualitative methods, to develop a training and capacity-building programme and lead research projects working on large datasets.

On training and capacity-building, the post holder will oversee plans and delivery of the ‘Spotlight Sessions’, an online knowledge exchange/ training series. That includes sourcing speakers and co-chairs, supporting preparation, working with comms team to promote the series, collating and evaluating feedback, etc. They will also work with people with lived experience in the Community Insights Panel (CIP) to support the CIP-led spotlight session.

In addition, the post holder will support the organisation and development of several workshops, working with our partners across the fields of policy, creative arts and academia. The post holder will also review and update the training and capacity-building platform strategy, with a view to adapting training current provision for external audiences.

On project delivery, the post holder will lead on a project around training and methods in creative communications for population health research. The post holder will oversee plans and delivery of an online training series, in-person workshop and creative outputs, making key decisions based on input from the wider team; monitor and co-ordinate the involvement of each partner; attend quarterly meetings with PHI UK Communications and Impact Group and provide updates on the project; manage the budget; and supervise the research assistant who supports the project co-ordination on a part-time basis.

In addition, the post holder will work on the data from Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS), taking part in quantitative analysis and preparing manuscripts for publication, and other research projects assigned by the supervisor.

This is a full-time post (35 hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract of 1 year from June 2026 to May 2027 or when the post holder returns.

Research staff at King’s are entitled to at least 10 days per year (pro-rata) for professional development. This entitlement, from the  Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, applies to Postdocs, Research Assistants, Research and Teaching Technicians, Teaching Fellows and AEP equivalent up to and including grade 7. Visit the  Centre for Research Staff Development for more information.

About you:

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

Essential criteria

1. PhD in Epidemiology, Population Health, Quantitative Social Science, Statistics, Psychology or a related field
2. Experience of undertaking high quality mental health research Experience in working collaboratively with interdisciplinary research teams and non-academic partners (eg. public health, local government)
3. Experience in delivering teaching, training, or capacity building programmes to a wide range of audiences
4. Experience of working with people with lived experience of mental illness and effective participatory methods to support meaningful involvement.
5. Good knowledge of population mental health and health inequalities
6. Experience in preparing and publishing papers in peer reviewed scientific journals and presenting at conferences
7. Experience in working collaboratively with interdisciplinary research teams and non-academic partners (eg. public health, local government)
8. Strong project management, time management and communication skills

Desirable criteria

1. Track record of publications in peer reviewed scientific journals
2. Experience of working across policy/ public health/ voluntary sectors and/ or people with lived experience
3. Experience of supervising researchers and students and/ or delivering seminars, presentations or training to diverse audiences.

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 page. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further Information 

     

At King’s, we believe that the diversity of our community and a culture that is welcoming, open, inclusive and collaborative, are great strengths of the university.

The Equality Act of 2010 protects the rights of our students and staff and provides a framework to fulfil our duties to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and in addition, to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. At times, this will include balancing rights and beliefs that can feel in tension.

We are committed to free speech and to academic freedom, believing that our foundational purpose as a university, is to create spaces where a wide range of ideas, including ideas that are controversial, can be discussed and debated, and where members of our community can express lawful views without fear of intimidation, harassment or discrimination.

When engaging in the robust exchange of ideas, we ask that our community is mindful of our Dignity at King’s guidance.

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 person specification section of the job description. 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.

We reserve the right to close adverts early due to the volume of applications we receive. While the closing date may change, all adverts will close at 23:59 to allow sufficient time for applications to be submitted on that day.

We encourage you to apply at the earliest opportunity to avoid disappointment as once we have closed a vacancy you will be unable to submit your application.*. *

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages. Interviews are due to be held in April/May 2026.