King's College London

About Us

​​King’s College London is a leading University with nine Faculties. As part of King’s Health Partners, we have an excellent environment for health care interaction and a strong focus on mentoring and career development.

​The 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF2021) placed King’s applied and allied health research 1st for: overall proportion of research rated 4* (world-leading, the best mark possible), research papers rated 4*, impact rated 4*, environment rated 4*(joint), Grade Point Average and Power.  REF2021 rated as world-leading: 100% of our environment, 86% of our impact and 70% of our research overall. Over 95% of our research overall was rated as world-leading or internationally excellent.

​As of 2026, King’s is top-two in the world for Nursing and #1 in the UK for the 8th year in a row (QS world rankings). King’s produces more highly cited research outputs (top 1% citations) on palliative care than any other centre internationally (SciVal), and is second in the world on the same metric for nursing and midwifery. King’s is the largest provider of health care education in Europe.

​The Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care (NMPC) is based in the heart of central and south London. It includes the Cicely Saunders Institute for Palliative Care, Policy & Rehabilitation, the premier Institute for Palliative Care, bringing together clinical, research and education teams.

​Our applied clinical and health multidisciplinary research transforms therapies, the healthcare experience and outcomes for patients and those important to them, wherever they are cared for. Our award-winning NMPC education programmes span pre-registration nursing and midwifery, and multidisciplinary post-graduate taught and research programmes.

​We are committed to staff development and offer opportunities to identify and access appropriate training and professional growth.

About the role

EQUICARE (EQUItable Community CARE for South Asian Patients and Families with Multiple Long-Term Conditions) is an NIHR-funded fellowship programme, led by Dr Sabrina Bajwah, that will culturally and contextually adapt and pilot a community-based key-worker and case-management intervention. Its aim is to reduce health inequality and improve end-of-life care for South Asian people living with advanced multiple long-term conditions.

We are seeking a motivated and methodologically skilled Research Associate to join the team for the first 18 months of this exciting programme. This is a pivotal early-stage post. You will lead the day-to-day delivery of a Rapid Realist Review, examining how, why and under what circumstances key-worker and case-management interventions influence emergency department attendance for South Asian patients. You will also provide substantial support to the ethics and governance submissions for the multi-centre fieldwork, and help coordinate community engagement, partnership-building and Patient and Public Involvement.

You will report to the Principal Investigator, Dr Sabrina Bajwah, and work closely with site leads, community researchers, PPI contributors and the Leeds Clinical Trials Research Unit. This is an outstanding opportunity to develop expertise in realist methodology, health-inequalities research and community-based working within a supportive, internationally leading research environment.

This is a part-time post at 0.8 FTE (28 hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract of 18 months.

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.

 King’s considers the professional and personal development of our staff a priority and we offer an inspiring range of opportunities for training and career progression. Our Organisational Development team provide in-house and bespoke learning.

 Location: Hybrid – minimum of 2 days per week on campus (Denmark Hill), with regular travel to study sites (Luton, Newham, Leicester and Manchester) and community settings.

About You

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

Essential criteria

1. A PhD in a relevant discipline (e.g. health services research, public health, social sciences, nursing/allied health, epidemiology) *
2. Knowledge of realist review / realist evaluation methodology (RAMESES standards)
3. Previous realist review / realist evaluation methodology publications as first author / lead author
4. An understanding of health inequalities and the determinants of access to care for underserved and ethnically diverse communities
5. Excellent organisational skills and the ability to manage competing deadlines across parallel work strands
6. A commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion and to working respectfully with diverse communities
7. Willingness and ability to travel to study sites and community settings, including occasional out-of-hours working
8. Familiarity with research ethics and HRA/REC governance processes

* Please note that this is a PhD level role but candidates who have submitted their thesis and are awaiting award of their PhDs will be considered. In these circumstances the appointment will be made at Grade 5, spine point 30 with the title of Research Assistant. Upon confirmation of the award of the PhD, the job title will become Research Associate and the salary will increase to Grade 6. 

Desirable criteria

1. Ability to communicate in a South Asian community language (e.g. Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali/Sylheti, Gujarati)
2. Experience of community engagement, PPI or co-production with underserved communities
3. Experience of preparing or supporting research ethics / governance applications

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.

This post is subject to Disclosure and Barring Service clearance.