Overview
Research Assistant (Youth Mental Health) – INTERNAL ONLY – Strand, London, WC2R 2LS
THIS VACANCY IS OPEN TO INTERNAL APPLICANTS ONLY
About us:
We look forward to welcoming the successful candidate to the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health (CSMH; www.kcl.ac.uk/csmh) and the Health Service and Population Research Department (HSPR; www.kcl.ac.uk/hspr), at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London.
About the role:
Overview
We are looking for a highly motivated and talented research assistant to work on Bridging Divides, an exciting new research project on youth mental health. The project started in April 2025 and is funded by a 5-year Wellcome Trust Mental Health Award.
The Team
We are a multidisciplinary team based in London, Tokyo, and Mannheim. The successful candidate will join the London team and collaborate across sites. We are a friendly, supportive, passionate, and hard-working group. We place great value on working with young people from diverse backgrounds to deliver relevant, engaging, inclusive, and impactful research.
The Project
Bridging Divides aims to understand and find new solutions to gender inequalities in youth mental health. We primarily seek to uncover the causal mechanisms through which sexism, misogyny, and gender inequality impact mental health during the teenage years and early adulthood. The project consists of three work packages (WPs):
• WP1 and WP3 will generate novel data in new school-based cohorts.
• WP2 will analyse existing data from multiple youth cohorts.
All aspects of the project, including the funding proposal, have been and will be coproduced with young people, schools, and community members.
The Role
We are looking for an enthusiastic and talented research assistant to:
- support and lead school-based data collection for WP1 and WP3, including surveys, interviews, and biological (saliva, hair, finger-prick blood samples) and passive sensing (actigraphy) data.
- support and lead on processes relating to data collection, e.g., preparation of equipment for (and after) data collection sessions, data entry and data cleaning, participant tracking and management, linking data across WPs, delivering presentations to school staff and students, and following consent and safeguarding protocols.
- develop their own independent research proposals (e.g., PhD studentships or research fellowship applications).
- contribute to other research activities as required, e.g., literature reviews, qualitative data analysis, writing and presenting papers and research reports.
- support and lead on youth engagement and coproduction activities and school-based workshops.
To be successful in this role, you will have:
- exceptional communication skills and the ability to inspire, engage, and involve schools and young people from diverse backgrounds in research.
- experience of previous youth engagement or school-based work.
- ability to work across multiple research streams, or in other large-scale projects with multiple stakeholders.
- ability and willingness to work outside of regular office hours, including early mornings (e.g., for school-based data collection) and the occasional weekend (e.g., for youth engagement and involvement activities).
We are keen to support the postholder with PhD/fellowship applications and will work with all team members to develop personalised training, support, and development plans.
Working Hours, Working Patterns
This is full time post for 24 months starting 1st November 2025. You will be offered a fixed-term contract until 31st October 2027, with the possibility of extension.
Some out-of-hours work (e.g., evenings, early mornings, the odd weekend) may be required, e.g., to accommodate school needs, our community coproduction team, young co-researchers, and time-zone differences (for meetings with collaborators in Tokyo, +9hrs GMT).
Coproduction activities may also necessitate in-person working during school holidays. Team members are asked to spend at least 60% of their time at the office.
Interview
Interviews are expected to take place at our Strand office in central London during the week commencing 6th October 2025.
IMPORTANT: Before applying for this role, please make sure you have the right to work in the country where the role is based. Unless it clearly stipulates within in the job advert above that the hiring company is looking to or able to sponsor applicants it is deemed that the hiring employer will only consider applications from those able to comply with and work in the country where the role is based.
