Research Associate

Post Type: Part Time

Hours per Week: 17.5

Contract Type: Fixed Term - Ends 31/12/2025

We have an exciting opportunity for an outstanding quantitative analyst to apply their advanced skills for the public good, working as part of a team to deliver the quasi-experimental, realist evaluation in the Prison Leavers Programme.

The post is to support the completion of the quantitative outcome analysis for the evaluation of the Prison Leavers Programme and is funded by the Ministry of Justice. The evaluation is being carried out by the University of Kent in collaboration with Tonic. 

In order to carry out this work, the postholder will also be seconded into the Ministry of Justice (while remaining an employee of the University of Kent) in order to access the necessary data for the PLP outcome evaluation.  Appointment to this post is conditional on the selected applicant passing the necessary vetting by the Ministry of Justice. We aim for the post to start in January 2024, but this will depend on passing vetting.

We are working with the Ministry of Justice to develop a dataset that brings together data on imprisonment, offending, health, and employment outcomes for people who leave prison. By December 2025, we must deliver to the Ministry of Justice an evaluation of the PLP. We also plan to produce related academic outputs. The successful applicant will primarily work on carrying out and reporting quantitative analysis of the outcomes achieved by people who have gone through interventions funded by the PLP. There will also be opportunities for the successful applicant to collaborate on other research projects in SSPSSR.

As a Research Associate you will:

• Support the Ministry of Justice to link data on prison leavers across administrative datasets
• Use matching techniques (e.g. propensity score matching) to create comparisons between people who were exposed to PLP interventions and comparator groups.
• Provide data extracts that are suitable for use in summative, qualitative comparative analysis of the outcomes achieved by interventions and individuals.
• Draft reports of the process and findings of the quantitative outcome evaluation, and producing tables and graphs to illustrate these reports. This work must be of a quality sufficient to be published by the Ministry of Justice and in related academic, peer-reviewed publications.

To be successful in this role you will have: 

• A PhD, or near to completion of a PhD (or equivalent experience) in a relevant subject
• Quantitative (data matching, regression, using relevant software packages, particularly R) analytic skills 
• Experience of running and reporting regression analyses
• Experience of undertaking high-quality research in this or a related field
• Excellent interpersonal, presentation and communication skills

If you have the qualifications, skills and experience we are looking for, we would welcome your application.

Please see the links below to view the job descriptions and additional information. To apply, please follow the link above to complete the application form and upload a cover letter and CV.  

For questions about the application process, please contact LSSJHR@kent.ac.uk quoting ref: LSSJ-242-23

Further details:   

Job Description    

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