Researcher 1A – Health and Environment (0.5 FTE) (FTC until 31 January 2030)

Contract: 0.5 FTE/ Fixed Term Contract until 31 January 2030

Closing Date: 17 August 2025

This is a part time (0.5FTE)/fixed term contract until 31 January 2030

This role is part of the project “The UK Hub for One Health Systems: Creating Sustainable Health and Social Care Pathways”, funded by UKRI, which is led by the University of Exeter and involves 20 partners, including NHS organisations, third sector organisations, and others with particular interest in the Net Zero agenda. We define a "patient journey" as a specific segment of a health and social care pathway, focusing on areas with high potential for carbon reduction, such as primary care settings for mental health and secondary care settings for orthopaedic surgery. Our toolkit builds upon previous works on reducing carbon emissions and pharmaceutical pollution by co-applicants from the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) program, the Pharma Pollution Hub at the University of Exeter, and the One Health Breakthrough Partnership in Scotland. The project will involve mapping current carbon emissions and other pollutants, proposing emission reduction plans, and predicting their impact on environmental sustainability, financial aspects, patient health outcomes, efficiency, equity, and stakeholder acceptability. Our approach aligns with the "One Health" and "Planetary Health" concepts, considering the interconnectedness of human and natural systems to achieve health equity and environmental sustainability.

Within this larger UK Hub, GCU will work on Work Package 1 (WP1), which comprises a deep-dive emission reduction in community and primary care and aims to take a transformative approach in re-imagining the mental healthcare pathway. We will the project will evaluate the environmental impacts of traditional and transformative ‘pathways to mental health’, using an iterative approach. We will use Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for these environmental footprint calculations.

The GCU team comprises of Dr. Karin Helwig, whose main research focus is on pharmaceutical pollution and whole-systems approaches to address this, and Dr. Andrew Wilson, who has extensive experience of LCA and carbon accounting in complex systems.

The current position is for a Researcher 1A to work on WP1 of the UK Hub for One Health Systems project, specifically to support the LCA. The successful candidate will be expected to work closely with team members both at GCU and at our partner universities elsewhere in the UK.

Essential criteria:

• Completed or almost completed a PhD in a relevant field (or demonstrable equivalent experience)
• Experience in planning and carrying out Life Cycle Assessment or comparable quantitative approaches and understanding of relevant standards such as ISO14040
• Strong data handling and analytical skills
• The ability to work independently with minimal supervision and to a high standard
• A demonstrable interest in health systems, mental health, social care, health policy, pharmaceutical pollution, or related field
• Experience in working with stakeholders or using other participatory approaches in LCA
• Success in academic publication or proven quality in thesis or report writing
• Excellent organisational skills
• Excellent oral and written communication skills 

Prospective candidates can request an informal conversation with the GCU Project Lead:

Dr. Karin Helwig at Karin.Helwig@gcu.ac.uk.

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