Research Fellow

University of Plymouth - Peninsula Medical School

We are seeking an enthusiastic and dedicated Research fellow to join a UKRI-funded research project.

About the role

The primary function of the role is to support delivery of a UKRI-funded research project, Building Recovery and Resilience in Severe Mental Illness. This project aims to gather novel data to enable a better understanding of the role of social determinants on illness trajectories and how these can be addressed in social treatments to support people with Severe Mental Illnesses (SMIs) better manage their symptoms/interference and facilitate medium-to-long term recovery. The project is led by Queen Mary University of London and the post holder will be employed by UoP. This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced researcher with an interest in serious mental illness and research co-production to work on a new project contributing to a large mental health platform. Specifically, this post will undertake work developing, tailoring and pilot-testing social prescribing and community organising programmes to target social determinants in those people with severe mental illnesses.

Supported by the team, you will undertake research investigations (including data collection) under the supervision of the University of Plymouth lead (Kerryn Husk) and the Principal Investigator (PI), Professor Lau and the Social Health Hub programme manager, to realise the objectives and development of the research programme into the social determinants of serious mental illness.

You will have:

• Experience working with stakeholders and being able to Identify relevant local stakeholders for participation in the project.
• Experience in facilitating innovative, lateral, sometimes radical thinking among a highly multidisciplinary mix of workshop participants,
• Experience in developing a framework of change for which structural and interpersonal determinants should be core intervention targets in social prescribing and community action.
• Experience of best-practice, anticipating barriers, and co-creating guidelines to help tailor protocols of community-based social programmes for supporting people with SMIs in historically underserved areas.
• Experience of working and presenting at creative workshops, sandpit forums and case-series easibility/acceptability testing., frameworks of change to guide discussions and facilitate the tailoring and adaptation of programme protocols.

For this role, you will need to be on site 2 days a week. Although we can accommodate working from home for this role, flexibility to be on-site will be expected due to business needs.

The successful candidate may be required to obtain an ATAS Certificate prior to this research being undertaken.

This is a full-time post working 37 hours a week on a fixed-term basis for 24 months, starting 1st October 2026.

For an informal discussion to find out more about the role then please contact Dr Kerryn Husk: by email at kerryn.husk@plymouth.ac.uk

What we’re looking for:

• An interest in serious mental illness and research co-production (E)
• Knowledge or research experience of social prescribing (E)
• Evidence of research attainments including examples of written contributions in academic publications/journals (E)
• Knowledge of designing research materials, conducting research and analysing mixed methods data (E)

Application Process

Please apply online, demonstrating how you meet the essential criteria outlined in the knowledge, qualifications, training, skills and experience elements of the job description in your supporting statement.

Our Offer

A summary of our comprehensive benefits can be viewed here.

Closing date: 12 midnight, Monday 27 April 2026