Research Assistant – Cerebral Palsy Lifespan Health and Wellbeing (CP-Life) Research Centre

Job Title: Research Assistant

Department: School of  Physiotherapy

Reporting to: Specified purpose contract for up to 12 months

Location: 123 St Stephen’s Green

Reporting to: Dr Jennifer Ryan

Remuneration: IUA Research Assistant Salary Scale; up to €39,908 (based on prior experience)

Proposed Start Date: 8 January 2024

RCSI is a community of academic, research, clinical and professional staff working collaboratively to lead the world to better health. Here, you will thrive in an innovative and inclusive atmosphere and your personal development and wellbeing will be supported. We invite you to join us to help deliver on our exciting mission “To educate, nurture and discover for the benefit of human health”. We seek candidates whose experience to date has prepared them to contribute to our commitment to the “Race Equality Action Plan 2021-2024” at RCSI. Our students come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds. This makes our university stronger and ensures we hire the best talent.

Innovating for a Healthier Future 2023-2027 is RCSI’s new five-year strategic plan. Through it, RCSI will enhance human health by meeting the health workforce needs of society, creating the insights and inventions that drive health improvements, and working in partnership with patients and the public in support of better health and well-being for all. The strategy unites the RCSI community in supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals – with a particular focus on Goal 3, which targets good health and well-being

For each of the last six years, RCSI has been positioned in the Top 300 of universities worldwide in the Times Higher World university Rankings. We are proud to announce that RCSI has ranked first in the world for “Good Health and Well-being” in the  Times Higher Education  #SDG Impact Rankings 2023.  This reflects our commitment to supporting people of all ages to live healthy lives and our work to promote the concepts of well-being and positive health. Our values of Respect, Collaboration, Scholarship and Innovation continue to unite and direct our purpose.

About Our Research

RCSI recognises that excellence in research is critical to the quality of its educational activities, its credibility, and, overall, to its mission to enhance human health. RCSI’s research strategy aims to build upon its strength in translational biomedical and clinical research to deliver transformational, high impact changes in health care. Targeting both Irish national and EU funding, along with increased collaboration with industry, is a major part of the RCSI research strategy. Forging increased collaboration between RCSI PIs and industry is of critical importance to achieving success in this area. RCSI is also committed to provide its researchers with the supports and developmental opportunities to enable them to continuously grow and support their overall career development.

Summary of Post

The Research Assitant will be based in the Cerebral Palsy Lifespan Health and Wellbeing (CP-Life) Research Centre, located in the School of Physiotherapy. They will be working on the Relate-CP project, a HRB-funded project investigating mental health and well-being in young people with cerebral palsy. The project involves a national survey of young people and parents about the mental health and well-being of young people with cerebral palsy and semi-structured interviews with parents and young people who have experienced mental health difficulties.

The Research Assistant will be responsible for completing data management and quantitative data analysis tasks. They will be responsible for carrying out administrative work relating to the project. They will also support data collection and may contribute to qualitative data analysis under the supervision of the Principal Investigator. They will be expected to engage in and contribute to the wider research activities ongoing in the Centre.

Specifically, the duties of the post are:

• Liasing with the Principal Investigator and project team to ensure the smooth running of the project
• Supporting data collection
• Completing data management and quantitative data analysis tasks
• Carrying out administrative work associated with the programme of research in the Centre
• Communicating with key stakeholders from multiple sectors to ensure completion of the project and dissemination of findings
• Contributing to dissemination of the results of the research including preparing manuscripts and presentations
• Engaging in the wider research activities of the Centre