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Job title Research Associate

Department Psychology

Salary Starting from £37,099, rising to £44,263 pro rata per annum

Grade Grade 7

Contract Type Part Time, Fixed Term

Placed on Monday 13 May 2024

Closing date Thursday 30 May 2024

Interview date Tuesday 18 June 2024

Reference CH11666

Special Conditions A DBS check is required for this position

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Research Associate

About the role

The Bath Centre for Pain Research (BCPR) at the University of Bath is the home to a team of interdisciplinary researchers that investigate the effect that pain has on people’s lives. It has a focus on exploring the way psychological and social factors impact on pain, and how this understanding might translate into better ways to manage painful conditions. The core areas of work are in: cognitive processes in pain, social factors, child and family, evidence-based medicine and digital development.

The Centre is leading a multi-institutional consortium (CRIISP) that seeks to better understand how psychosocial mechanisms impact on chronic pain. It will also explore how these factors might work alongside biology, in order to provide a better understanding of pain and how it is managed. The consortium is funded under the Advanced Pain Discovery Platform programme, which is part of a new joint and equal investment of £14 million by UKRI and Versus Arthritis. For UKRI, the initiative is led by the Medical Research Council, with support from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). 

We are seeking to recruit a research associate post to support the programme of work that we are leading on from Bath. It will primarily involve working with large datasets to explore psychosocial factors in the change states and transitions in chronic pain. As the role will require the analysis of existing large multi-wave longitudinal datasets, a good level of understanding of, and familiarity with, appropriate statistical methods will be required. The role may also involve supporting in the data collection of ongoing pain studies. It will require skills and experience in quantitative data analysis.

This role is offered on a part time (29.2 hours per week) fixed term basis with an expected end date of 31/12/2025.

About you 

You will need to take an active part in the work of the consortium including through participation at events and workshops, providing support and advice in keeping with their role and level of appointment, as well as engaging with patient and public focus groups and other stakeholders.

  • A PhD degree in a subject area of direct relevance for the project e.g. psychology.
  • Experience working with large cohort datasets and skilled in advanced data analysis (e.g., longitudinal, multi-wave data).
  • Excellent oral, interpersonal and written communication skills.
  • Knowledge of relevant governance issues in health/clinical psychology research.
  • Experimental and/or clinical health research design and methods skills.

For informal discussions please contact Professor Ed Keogh on pssemk@bath.ac.uk or Dr Sarah Eliot on se369@bath.ac.uk

This post is subject to basic Disclosure and Barring Clearance, which will be processed by the University. 

What we can offer you:

Find out more about our benefits.

We consider ourselves to be an inclusive university, where difference is celebrated, respected and encouraged. We have an excellent international reputation with staff from over 60 different nations and have made a positive commitment towards gender equality and intersectionality receiving a Silver Athena SWAN award. We truly believe that diversity of experience, perspectives, and backgrounds will lead to a better environment for our employees and students, so we encourage applications from all genders, backgrounds, and communities, particularly from under-represented groups, and value the positive impact that will have on our teams. 

We are very proud to be an autism friendly university and are an accredited Disability Confident Leader; committed to building disability confidence and supporting disabled staff.

Find out from our staff what makes the University of Bath a great place to work. Follow us @UniofBath and @UniofBathJobs on Twitter for more information.

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Further details:


We are constantly seeking to reduce the unconscious bias that enters any assessment process, with the goal of creating an inclusive and equal assessment process. To support this, personal details will be removed from application forms at the initial shortlisting stage.