Research Assistant in the Department of Addictions

About us

The Addictions Department, also known as the National Addiction Centre (NAC), is one of the most productive addictions research groups in Europe. We represent an important area of health-related study as the Addictions Clinical Academic Group (CAG) within King’s Health Partners, and form one of the core areas of the Academic Health Science Centre that brings together university partners King’s College London with the NHS from South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, King’s College Hospital and Guy’s and St Thomas’. RAND Europe rated our work on Substance Abuse Research as leading in the field.

The Addictions department at King’s College London is based at Denmark Hill in London, for this role, the appointed person would also be working across drug services in London.

About the role

We would like to appoint a Research Assistant to play a key role within a newly NIHR funded project. The research focuses on the development, evaluation and testing of a Virtual Reality-enhanced Cue Exposure Treatment integrated with a wearable device to address craving, prevent relapse and improve treatment outcomes of people with cocaine dependence.

A key challenge in helping people to recover from cocaine addiction (or dependence) is their craving for the drug that can be triggered by ‘cues’ in their environment, such as situations or objects, which remind them of the pleasurable effects of cocaine. This process is known as ‘classical conditioning’ and the aim of this study is to reduce the risk of relapse to cocaine through use of novel technologies to reduce craving.

The person appointed will be employed by the Addictions Department at King’s College London (KCL) and will report to Professor Paolo Deluca (Lead applicant). The person appointed will also be working closely with the Project Manger Dr Eileen Brobbin, who is based at King’s College London.

The successful candidate will have a good understanding of addictive behaviours, experience in conducting quantitative and qualitative research in clinical settings, and data collection and recruitment. Having conducted research using wearable devices and/or virtual reality will be an asset.

You will also have established research skills relevant to this work. You should be a clear and balanced communicator and committed to equality, diversity and inclusion principles. The successful appointee will be expected to be reliable and efficient and also to have good inter-personal as well as organisational skills.

This is a full-time post and you will be offered a fixed-term contract of one year.

About you

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

• An Undergraduate degree in a related area, including relevant training in research methods
• Experience of quantitative or qualitative research methods
• A good understanding of methods in addiction research
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to adapt communication to the situation
• Excellent time management skills with the ability to multitask and prioritise and complete work within deadlines. A proven ability to coordinate and deliver projects
• Ability to work independently as well as part of a team
• A commitment to promoting equality, diversity and inclusivity for staff and students

Desirable criteria

• Experience working with vulnerable people
• Experience of conducting research in clinical settings
• Experience of coordinating research trials in NHS settings
• Experience of conducting qualitative interviews
• Experience of working in multidisciplinary teams

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