Research Associate (670513)

FTE: 1 (35 hours/week) 

Contract Type: Fixed Term (Until 15/11/2028)

We are seeking to appoint a researcher to work in Social Policy at the University of Strathclyde as part of a new, multi-institution UKRI hub called THRIVING Food Futures. This role would suit a researcher with strong qualitative research skills and public engagement experience, who is keen to work with others using more quantitative methods. Ideally you would have an interest in health and wider social inequalities, sustainability, diet and food systems.

THRIVING Food Futures, which is led by Prof Peter Scarborough at the University of Oxford, represents a significant investment in research into healthy, sustainable diets. As well as Strathclyde, the hub has collaborators at City St George’s, University of London, Queen Mary University of London, the Universities of Cambridge and Warwick, and Sustain. This new research hub will be a space for academics, policymakers and the public to co-design work on healthy, sustainable diets for everyone. It includes work streams that will: engage the community, develop tools and metrics, enhance our understanding of relevant policy, and develop and evaluate new interventions.

As a Research Associate, you will work closely with Strathclyde’s co-leads in THRIVING Food Futures Centre, Professor Kat Smith and Dr Emma Hill. The role is based in Social Policy, a thriving academic group with particular expertise in intersectional inequalities and participatory methods and is home to the Strathclyde Centre for Health Policy. You will take a leading role in establishing with a Community Panel, who will inform and scrutinise the hub’s research. The appointed Research Associate will also work with an external organisation to undertake a series of citizens’ juries in the second year of the post and will, drawing from the juries, develop a Citizens’ Panel, which will complement the Community Panel by scrutinising and deliberating over the hub’s emerging policy recommendations. Beyond this, the appointed Research Associate, will work to facilitate engagement between the Community Panel, the Citizens’ Panel and the members of THRIVING Food Futures to ensure that research and policy outputs produced by the hub take account of public understandings and preferences, and of social inequalities.

To be considered for the role, you will be educated to a minimum of PhD level in an appropriate discipline or have equivalent professional research experience in addition to a relevant degree. You will have sufficient breadth or depth of knowledge in health inequalities and an ability to conduct individual research work, to disseminate results and to lead on knowledge exchange activities with local communities and with policy stakeholders. You will have an ability to plan and organise your own workload effectively and an ability to work within a team environment. You will have excellent interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to listen, engage and persuade, and to present complex information in an accessible way to a range of audiences, especially members of the public. 

Whilst not essential for the role, applications are welcomed from candidates with relevant work experience, membership of relevant Chartered/professional bodies (including the Higher Education Academy), and experience of relevant student supervision and teaching activities.

Informal enquiries about the post can be directed to Professor Kat Smith, Professor of Public Health Policy (katherine.smith.100@strath.ac.uk).

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