We are looking to appoint an experienced mixed methods researcher to join our Suicide Prevention research programme at the Autism Research Centre (ARC), Cambridge University. See www.autismresearchcentre.com The aims of the programme grant are: first, to examine the risk and protective factors for suicide attempts in autistic people; and second, to explore where gaps exist in support services, as well as factors that could have prevented suicide.
The role holder will be a second project coordinator on the Bereaved Voices project, a community-based interview study, based on principles of psychological autopsy, that aims to better understand what contributed to death by suicide amongst autistic people. This study has been co-designed with a lived experience panel of people bereaved by the suicide of an autistic person. The role holder will be part of a wider team working on suicide prevention research.
The role holder will work with the Principal Investigator and team (lead co-PIs: Professors Simon Baron-Cohen and Carrie Allison) at the ARC. The essential criteria include: (1) Applicants should have a PhD in a relevant discipline (e.g., psychology, psychiatry, and allied disciplines). (2) Previous experience conducting qualitative and quantitative studies related to suicide prevention/self-harm research with autistic people. (3) A first author publication in autism and suicide-prevention/self-harm research.
The role holder will join the project at the data collection stage as this project has received ethical approval. They will undertake qualitative interviews with bereaved people and will co-ordinate a multi-disciplinary team of interviewers. The role holder will contribute to development of the data analysis strategy, approach to coding and proposed outputs of the study. Other responsibilities include co-ordinating the involvement of lived experience collaborators and the advisory group, managing ethical amendments, ensuring reliability of data collection across researchers, organising team discussions around emerging issues in data collection, data analysis, writing articles and conference presentations. We recognise conducting research in this area is itself distressing and the role holder will be supported within a friendly team.
Informal enquiries may be directed to Carrie Allison ([email protected]). For questions related to visa applications related to this role, or related HR questions, please contact [email protected].
Deadline for applications is 19th July 2026, with interviews TBC.
Fixed-term: The funds for this post are available until 31 July 2027 in the first instance.
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Applicants must have (or be close to obtaining) a PhD.
Appointment at Research Associate level is dependent on having a PhD. Those who have submitted but not yet received their PhD will initially be appointed as a Research Assistant (Grade 5, Point 38 £34,610) moving to Research Associate (Grade 7) upon confirmation of your PhD award.
Please ensure that you upload a covering letter and CV in the Upload section of the online application. The covering letter should outline how you match the criteria for the post and why you are applying for this role. If you upload any additional documents which have not been requested, we will not be able to consider these as part of your application.
Please include details of your referees, including email address and phone number, one of which must be your most recent line manager.
Please quote reference RN50255 on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.
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