Research Associate - Post stroke communication disorders

The University of Sheffield is a remarkable place to work. Our people are at the heart of everything we do. Their diverse backgrounds, abilities and beliefs make Sheffield a world‑class university.

We offer a fantastic range of benefits including a highly competitive annual leave entitlement (with the ability to purchase more), a generous pensions scheme, flexible working opportunities, a commitment to your development and wellbeing, a wide range of retail discounts, and much more. Find out more about our benefits and join us to become part of something special.

We are seeking to appoint a Research Associate interested in post stroke communication disorders to join the School of Medicine and Population Health to work on a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) funded programme of work to co‑design and evaluate a new Aphasia Partnership Training intervention. The intervention aims to help people with the communication disorder aphasia and their family members communicate better together.

The post holder will be responsible for delivering work that aims to understand the context of implementing the new intervention. This will include conducting a national survey of current family communication partner training provision and exploring feasibility, acceptability, fidelity, adaptation and implementation of the new intervention alongside successive phases of evaluation/trial. The mixed methods process evaluation will include qualitative interviews, focus groups, self‑report measures and video observations.

It is essential that the post holder has some experience of qualitative and/or mixed methods research, and experience communicating with people with communication disorders. This role offers excellent professional development opportunities alongside an experienced research fellow, and benefit ting from tailored training provided by the NIHR and the University of Sheffield, as well as project specific opportunities. Excellent communication skills are essential alongside a proven ability to work well in an interdisciplinary team.

The role will contribute to the Faculty and University focus on applied research that has a positive impact on the delivery of health services to patients and staff.

• Work independently and with the implementation work package leads to initiate and undertake a range of research activities
• Use accessible communication strategies in interactions with patients
• Contribute to ethics applications for work packages to which the implementation work contributes
• Lead on organising, recruiting to and conducting qualitative research interviews with patients who have aphasia (communication disorder) after a stroke, their family members and speech and language therapists. This is likely to require some travel for participants who cannot participate online
• Watch videos of intervention sessions and rate fidelity using a checklist
• Collect and analyse self‑report measures
• Coordinate research activity and liaise with members of the research team within the University of Sheffield and partner organisations to ensure delivery of research to study deadlines
• Analyse qualitative data, supported by senior researchers in the team
• Contribute summary fidelity and implementation findings in a timely manner to contribute to stop/go decisions for trialling the intervention, and any improvements required to the intervention or its training
• Ensure that all research is conducted in accordance with relevant legislation and within the requirements of research ethics and governance, including recruitment of participants and obtaining informed consent
• Contribute to writing study reports, conference abstracts and other dissemination materials
• Liaise with the Patient and Public Involvement group and clinical reference group to ensure materials used are accessible, emerging findings are discussed and dissemination activities are inclusive
• Attend team, research group and other section or School meetings as required
• You will make a full and active contribution to the principles of the Sheffield Academic. These include the achievement of excellence in applied research, and scholarly…