Postdoctoral Research Associate/Fellow

This new part-time (0.5 FTE) post is available immediately on a fixed term basis until January 2026

Summary of the role

The Faculty wishes to recruit a Postdoctoral Research Associate or Postdoctoral Research Fellow to participate in a Digital Health project led by Dr Samantha van Beurden, focused on improving D:REACH-HF, a digital home-based cardiac rehabilitation programme for people with heart failure. A key aspect of this role is the cultural adaptation of the programme to better meet the needs of the South Asian community in the UK, who are disproportionately affected by heart failure but remain underrepresented in both research and current rehabilitation services.

The project will enhance usability for older patients, caregivers, and health professionals, with a strong emphasis on inclusivity and cultural relevance. This LEAP Digital Health hub funded post is available from the 1st of February 2025 to 31^st of January 2026. The successful applicant will play a key role in enhancing the D:REACH-HF digital cardiac rehabilitation platform, focusing on improving usability, cultural inclusivity, and accessibility for South Asian communities. They will collaborate with patients, caregivers, healthcare professionals, and developers to refine the platform through co-design workshops, iterative development, and qualitative research optimising usability, ensuring it is ready for future clinical evaluation. For more background information regarding the intervention, please visit: https://sites.exeter.ac.uk/reachhf/

The post will include:

• Establishing and maintaining connections with South Asian communities to enable recruitment for stakeholder engagement and research activities.
• Preparing and facilitating co-design workshops to gather insights from diverse stakeholders, including patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals.
• Preparing applications for regulatory approvals.
• Conducting and analysing think-aloud interviews to evaluate usability, cultural relevance, and acceptability, and analysing the data using the Person-Based Approach.
• Collaborating with developers and the wider research team to implement findings into platform improvements, ensuring a user-friendly and inclusive design.

About you

The successful applicant will be able to present information on research progress and outcomes, communicate complex information, orally, in writing and electronically; develop research objectives, projects and proposals for application to external bodies; identify sources of research funding and contribute to the process of securing funds and make presentations at conferences and other events.

Applicants will possess a relevant PhD or equivalent qualification/experience in a related field of study. For a Fellow appointment, the successful applicant will be a nationally recognised authority in Digital Health or Complex Interventions and possess sufficient specialist knowledge in the discipline to develop research programmes and methodologies. The successful applicant will also be able to work collaboratively, supervise the work of others and act as team leader as required.

Applicants will be able to work independently and communicate and collaborate effectively with other members of the REACH-HF team, commercial partner (Health and Care Innovations), and charities building connections between health research and South Asian communities, to support the cultural adaptation and refinement of D:REACH-HF.

Applicants must have knowledge of 1) existing research on the development of complex behaviour change interventions and in the wider discipline of health services research and of associated research methods and techniques, 2) experience in qualitative interviewing and analysis skills (Person-Based Approach preferred but not essential) and 3) evidence of prior related research activity, including development of regulatory body/ethical applications and published research.     

Please ensure you read the Job Description for full details.

Further information

Please contact Samantha van Beurden, e-mail S.B.vanBeurden@exeter.ac.uk or telephone (01392) 726440.

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