Research Fellow

Salary: Full time starting salary is normally in the range £35,880 to £45,163 with potential progression once in post to £47,874. As this vacancy has limited funding the maximum salary that can be offered is Grade7, salary £37,999.

Contract Type: Fixed Term contract up to February 2028

Background

BRACE works closely with patients, NHS staff and decision makers to support studies into healthcare delivery. Central to the BRACE team approach is conducting high-quality, theoretically sound and methodologically rigorous evaluations that have real practical implications for the roll-out of new services within the NHS. 

Role Summary

With a background in mixed-methods health services research, the post-holder will contribute to the Centre’s ongoing development and management, along with the design and delivery of the rapid evaluations. Working with colleagues across the collaborating organisations, they will play an integral role across a portfolio of rapid evaluations. In doing so they will design and undertake mixed-methods evaluations, work in collaboration with local teams leading these innovations, analyse findings, and plan and deliver high impact dissemination activities to embed these findings into NHS practice.

We invite applications from ambitious candidates with a strong track record in applied mixed-methods research, it is advantageous if you have some experience of working with a range of collaborators and research participants, excellent analytical and communication skills, and be able to work at pace across a wide variety of topics and activities.

Main Duties

The responsibilities may include some but not all of the responsibilities outlined below.

• To contribute to the development, submission and presentation of proposals across a portfolio of rapid evaluations, with a particular focus on mixed-methods (qualitative and/or quantitative) proposals.
• To contribute to rapid evaluations by working alongside and in collaboration with a range of employed and associate colleagues, and in partnership with BRACE partner organisations.
• Support topic stakeholder engagement and patient and public involvement activities using a variety of different approaches i.e. on-line, in person workshops, social media, newsletters and blogs.
• Provide advice to colleagues on relevant theories and methodologies to support high quality and innovative research.
• To undertake rapid project scoping, data analysis and interpretation, and the production of project outputs. Analyse data using appropriate methods, using established software packages where appropriate, especially when interpreting data from large data sets.

Person Specification

• First degree or equivalent professional qualification; a PhD (or close to completion) in a relevant topic area (desirable).
• Experience of undertaking evaluation and applied research in health and care and in the dissemination of research findings and learning.
• Fluency in relevant health service evaluation concepts, theories and methods, and ability to contribute to developing new ones.
• Mixed-methods and quantitative research skills, ideally with experience of using routine data for applied research and evaluation purposes or advanced qualitative data analysis.

Informal enquiries regarding this post may be made to Dr Manbinder Sidhu (Co-Director of BRACE) m.s.sidhu@bham.ac.uk; or Cathy Dakin (Centre Manager for BRACE) C.S.Dakin@bham.ac.uk

To download the full job description and details of this position and submit an electronic application online please click on the 'Apply' button above.

Valuing excellence, sustaining investment
We value diversity and inclusion at the University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community and are open to discussions around all forms of flexible working.

Closes: 9^th March 2025

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