Research Fellow in Psychology

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Research Fellow in Social Identity and Loneliness

Fixed term for 4.5 years

About the Role

The Psychology Department at Nottingham Trent University is seeking to employ a Research Fellow for 4.5 years to explore the relationships between group memberships and loneliness within local community settings. You will be joining a collegial and ambitious group of Social Identity researchers with an excellent reputation for their theoretically informed applied research.

The project uses the Social Identity Approach to examine how different group memberships shape the occurrence and experience of loneliness and how community-based social interventions (e.g. Men’s Sheds or Social Prescribing) can serve to reduce loneliness. The research will involve primary data collection, (e.g. online surveys and experiments), secondary analysis of nationally representative datasets (e.g. Understanding Society and English Longitudinal Study of Ageing), as well as writing and disseminating research outputs. The researcher will take a leading role in the development of this evolving programme of work and be involved in the generation of policy outputs and training materials for local community organisations.

A second dimension of the role will be to work with colleagues in Tohoku University, Japan to undertake comparative research on the relationships between social identity and loneliness in each national context. The Fellow will be expected to collaborate with their Tohoku University counterpart by distance and to travel to Tohoku University annually to undertake onsite training and collaborative research.

Interview date: w/c 15th December 2025

The post is funded by an award from Tohoku University under the Japanese Government's Universities for Research Excellence Scheme to Prof Clifford Stevenson (Clifford Stevenson || 東北大学 大学院教育学研究科 教育学部). The Research Fellow will become a core part of the International Centre for Community-based Loneliness Reduction, a collaboration between NTU, Tohoku University and the Social Identity and Groups Network at University of Queensland. This is an ideal opportunity for an experienced researcher to join a highly motivated international team, refine their skills in conducting applied psychological research and make a valuable contribution to addressing important scientific and policy issues. We expect this role to establish the Research Fellow as a future leader in this field. Accordingly, we aim to develop a programme of training and development with the successful candidate tailored to meet their specific career needs.

For more details, please take a look at the role profile. For any informal queries about the role or the team, please contact Professor Clifford Stevenson (Professor of Social Psychology) at clifford.stevenson@ntu.ac.uk.