Salary Range: £36,924 - £45,163
FTE: 1 (35 hours/week)
Contract Type: Fixed Term (Until 15/11/2028)
Closing Date: 08/01/2025
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 (and be guided and supported by) Strathclyde’s co-leads in THRIVING Food Futures Centre, Professor Kat Smith and Dr Emma Hill. The role is based in Social Policy, which is a thriving academic group with particular expertise in intersectional inequalities and participatory methods, and which is home to the Strathclyde Centre for Health Policy. The appointee will take a leading role in establishing and working closely with a Community Panel, who will inform and scrutinise the hub’s research (a dimension of the role which will require effectively engaging with the full remit of the hub’s work). 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. This will involve working closely with the external organisation and others involved in THRIVING Food Futures to design and deliver the citizens’ juries, which will take place across the UK, to analyse the resulting data and to support policy engagement with the emerging 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. The role will involve supporting Community Panel and Citizens’ Panel members to engage with other aspects of the hub’s research, as well as identifying, analysing and synthesising existing qualitative data and evidence (e.g. in published reports, articles and in the UK Data Archive). Longer term, the post-holder will be supported to identify additional sources of funding, and to contribute to securing of funds for further research and knowledge exchange, which is likely to include drafting grant proposals (this is likely to include contributing to large, collaborative grant applications and developing your own, independent grant applications).
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 a developing 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).
Formal interviews for this post will be held on Thursday, 16 January 2025.