Senior Research Officer

About The Role

The successful applicant will join a thriving mental health research team with over £40M in joint funding in the past five years. You will develop new skills and receive career development support while applying your research, analytical, and programming expertise to answer mental health questions. Your work will be published as policy briefings and high-impact journal papers.

The team, led by Prof. Ann John, focuses on child and adolescent mental health, suicide, and self-harm prevention. Prof. John is the chair of the National Advisory Group on suicide and self-harm prevention to Welsh Government, a member of SAGE, a Trustee of the Samaritans, co-director of DATAMIND, Principal Investigator of the National Centre for Mental Health (NCMH), and leads the Data Science theme at the Wolfson Centre for Young People’s Mental Health. She also co-leads the Data and Digital theme of the Mental Health Mission, aiming to use data and digital technologies efficiently in developing and evaluating new treatments for mental health disorders.

You will work with data resources such as the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank at Swansea University, a Centre of Excellence that collaborates with multidisciplinary partners. SAIL is a secure repository for billions of person-based records, spanning up to 20 years from the entire population of Wales, enabling researchers to address critical societal questions.

The post-holder will have a background in clinical epidemiology and/or health data science, with a passion for working with mental health data. Preferably, you will have experience using large relational databases through SQL, proficiency in a programming language such as R, Stata, or Python, and knowledge of routine big data such as GP records and hospital admissions.

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

The University is committed to supporting and promoting equality and diversity in all its practices and activities. We aim to establish an inclusive environment and welcome diverse applications from the following protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race (including colour, nationality, ethnic and national origin), religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation.

As an inclusive and welcoming workplace, we value people for their skills regardless of their background. Applications are welcome in Welsh and will not be treated less favourably than those submitted in English.

Welsh Language Skills

The Welsh language level required for this role is Level 1 - A little. The role holder will be able to pronounce Welsh words, answer the phone in Welsh (good morning/afternoon) and use very basic everyday words and phrases (thank you, please etc.). Level 1 can be reached by completing a 1 hour course.

The University is a proud bilingual institution, our Welsh Language Strategy outlines our aspiration to promote the language and enable our staff to engage with the language as an additional workplace skill and as a gateway to new cultural and social opportunities. Applications are welcome in Welsh and will not be treated less favourably than those submitted in English. Welsh speakers have the right to an interview in Welsh. Applicants for a role where Welsh skills are essential are expected to present their application in Welsh and will be interviewed in Welsh, if shortlisted.

Additional Information

Applications for this role will take the format of a CV submission and cover letter.

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