Research Fellow

Location: Highfield Campus

Part Time Fixed Term

Reference: 702216BN

Senior Research Assistant/ Research Fellow – “Helping commissioners measure and evaluate self-management support interventions”.
Faculty of Health Sciences

Situated within one of the UK’s leading research Universities, the Faculty of Health Sciences offers superb facilities for education and research and is one of the largest and most successful faculties of its kind in the UK. Our research in the Faculty of Health Sciences has been confirmed as world leading or internationally excellent in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework results. With world-class academic staff committed to transforming health services and improving health outcomes, we are committed to building on our national and international education and research reputation.

We are seeking two enthusiastic, well-organised, motivated Senior Research Assistants/Research Fellows who wish to join a multidisciplinary team on an exciting new study to design a resource which will help health-service commissioners identify the best tools for measuring and evaluating self-management support interventions.

This research, which is led by Dr Sara Demain, has been funded by The Health Foundation to develop a resource for commissioners. Commissioners are tasked with procuring self-management support services for people with long-term conditions and they need to be able to evaluate how effective these services are. Commissioners have told us that they are familiar with measuring healthcare processes but are less confident in measuring person centred outcomes.

This research will use systematic review methodologies to identify appropriate outcome measures; construct mapping to define the foci of the measures; apply COSMIN criteria to evaluate the psychometric robustness of the measures; and, will assess the measures for pragmatic utility.

This will lead to an on-line resource to help improve the evaluation of self-management review of the literature, focus groups and interviews with stakeholders and a national Delphi survey.

You will have a first degree or appropriate professional qualification and postgraduate qualifications (PhD or MSc) in a relevant discipline; evidence of the ability to work efficiently in teams and independently; and, excellent oral and written communication skills.
Experience in qualitative research or outcome measure development would be an advantage. Clinical or research expertise in self-management and/or long-term condition management would also be beneficial.

These are part-time fixed term posts for 12 months. We have funding for both people to work 0.5 wte but would discuss working arrangements between 0.3 and 0.7 wte. Candidates should identify their preferred working arrangement is in their application for discussion at interview.

If you would like further details of the research and/or to discuss the position, please contact Dr Sara Demain via email at shd@soton.ac.uk

The position is tenable to start as soon as possible after interview

The closing date for this post is 13 March 2016

Application procedure:
You should submit your completed online application form at www.jobs.soton.ac.uk. The application deadline will be midnight on the closing date stated above. If you need any assistance, please call Karen Goard (Recruitment Team) on +44 (0) 23 8059 4048.

Please quote reference 702216BN on all correspondence.