Senior Research Assistant in Community Wellbeing – Newcastle upon Tyne

This six month post will enable you to explore qualitative work in two diverse contexts: early language interventions for young children and the concept of ‘drug free remission’ for people diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA)

We want to work with a great qualitative researcher, who has excellent practical, analytic and conceptual skills.  Working as part of friendly and supportive multi-disciplinary teams including academics, regional providers, national and international project partners, you will support the delivery of ongoing qualitative work on two projects. You will be based in the Implementation and Innovation Research Group (IIR) at Northumbria University, working primarily with Tim Rapley.

You will be supporting the NIHR HSDR funded PLACES research project, by undertaking research activity, writing up research work for publication and collaborating with project partners. The PLACES study explores the implementation of tailored early language interventions for young children at risk of speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) within three local authorities. The qualitative work will involve supporting the further analysis of our current qualitative data set as well as undertaking some additional interviews and observation with front line, technical, managerial and research staff and parents, carers and children over multiple sites across England. Some of the fieldwork will be conducted in person, so at times there will be travel to different parts of England, some will also be conducted remotely. The qualitative work for PLACES will explore the development, introduction, embedding and sustaining of the tailored interventions.

You will also support some of the qualitative analysis work on the Foundation for Research in Rheumatology funded SINFONIA research project. The SINFONIA study seeks to characterise the immune phenotype of patients with RA in SDFR, and understand their perspectives of living with this condition. 

For further detail see the role description.

This role is fixed-term for 6 months and will start in Spring 2026. 

This role is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 therefore the successful candidate will be subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service check. 

The SINFONIA study is a collaboration between university partners – Newcastle University, Friedrich-Alexander University (Germany), Leiden University (Netherlands) and Northumbria University – alongside patient partners.

You will be embedded in the Implementation and Innovation Research Group (IIR) – a small friendly cross departmental group between the School of Healthcare and Nursing Sciences and the School of Communities and Education at Northumbria University. IIRs work ranges from initiation, scoping and development of novel ideas for service, therapeutic and care innovations, to feasibility studies, pilot and full trials with embedded process evaluations, as well as the scaling up and scaling out of evidence-based interventions. IIR works with key health and social care stakeholders to develop innovative, individualised, community-based and organisational solutions to problems of implementation and knowledge mobilisation through applied research. Through high quality research, we develop theories, tools, and methodologies as well as interventions to support implementation and knowledge mobilisation in practice.

You will be formally based in the School of Communities and Education, at Northumbria University, Coach Lane Campus, one of four schools within the Faculty of Health and Wellbeing.

Knowledge of contemporary debates in implementation in health and/or social care is desirable, as is knowledge of debates and challenges relating to speech, language and communication needs and living with musculoskeletal conditions. 

Ability to travel for purpose of data collection to various locations in the UK is essential. 

Further information is available in the person specification.