"Research Fellow"

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The role

An exciting opportunity for a Research Fellow in the School of Psychology (part time, fixed term contract upto Jul 2026).

Living with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is a balancing act for children and young people (CYP), who must carefully monitor food and activity. This pressure can lead to worries about food, weight, and body image, with 1 in 3 CYP with T1D struggling with disordered eating (T1DE). Yet, most support focuses on managing T1D, leaving little help for building a healthy relationship with food and body. Parents can play a crucial role in preventing T1DE, and that’s why we created PRIORITY—a parent-focused programme designed to give parents tools to help their CYP develop healthier eating habits and reduce the risk of T1DE. Our research showed parents were eager to participate, found it easy to access, and valued the practical advice. We have since developed eLearning to support the delivery of PRIORITY by healthcare professionals (HCPs) working in diabetes clinics.

We now want to test whether our eLearning can be implemented in NHS diabetes clinics to support HCPs to deliver PRIORITY to the same standard as our previous study. The successful delivery of the manualised intervention by T1D HCPs would be important for implementation given the shortages of specialist psychologists working within diabetes services. Furthermore, evidence suggests that non-psychologists can be trained to deliver brief, manualised psychological interventions to parents with high fidelity.

You will be responsible for project co-ordination including site set-up, recruitment and retention of participants, intervention fidelity monitoring, data collection (both quantitative and qualitative) and contribute to analysis, manuscript and report writing, presentations and dissemination generally. This is an excellent opportunity to be involved in a clinically relevant project and develop your research competency.

About you

A doctoral degree in a relevant discipline is expected (health or clinical psychology). Experience of delivering research within NHS settings is desirable. The post holder will have authority over some aspects of project work and must be capable of providing academic and clinical judgement, offering original and creative thoughts and be able to interpret and analyse results.

How to apply

Please apply with your CV and cover letter on the University website.

Please do get in contact with the Principal Investigator Prof Chrissie Jones c.j.jones@surrey.ac.uk to discuss any aspect of the role or your suitability.

Further details

Job Description