Research Fellow - Qualitative Mental Health Learning Systems

Faculty of Health

Are you motivated by meaningful collaboration and want your research to influence how mental health services are designed and delivered?

Join us at a pivotal moment in the growth of the University of Plymouth Mental Health Research Group (MHRG). Backed by an £11 million NIHR investment, we are building one of the UK's leading groups for applied mental health research, creating research that works with people, services and communities to improve mental health care. This is a rare opportunity to contribute to an exciting programme of embedded research while helping to build the future of mental health research in the South West and beyond.

About the role:

You will:

• Be focusing on how to better capture qualitative experiential data, and mobilise knowledge within mental health systems to inform service improvement.
• Help mental health services improve the support they offer to people with ongoing and severe mental health problems.
• Play a central role in the Mental Health Learning Systems Project.
• Explore how the experiences of people using services and the staff delivering care can be better understood and used to improve mental health systems.
• Co-design and deliver qualitative research.
• Undertake interviews.
• Unertake Observations and analysis.
• Collaborate with experts in quantitative research and health economics.
• Work directly with local partners to turn evidence into service improvement.

As part of the MHRG, you won't simply join a project, you'll help build a research community. We are investing in the next generation of mental health researchers through bespoke training, mentoring, grant-writing support, publication opportunities and leadership development.

For more information on Peninsula Medical School please visit our dedicated webpage

For this role, you will need to be on site 1 day a week. Although we can accommodate working from home for this role, flexibility to be on-site will be expected due to business needs.

There is an essential requirement within this role that you will be required to travel to and work at different University sites and/or other business locations that may not be easily accessible by public transport. Please refer to the job description for further information.

For an informal discussion to find out more about the role then please contact Charley Hobson Merrett:by email at charley.hobson-merrett@plymouth.ac.uk

What we’re looking for:

We're looking for someone with:

• Experience of qualitative mental health research, excellent communication and relationship-building skills,
• The ability to work collaboratively across academic, nhs, voluntary sector and lived experience communities.
• Experience of co-production, knowledge mobilisation, public involvement, qualitative analysis software or embedded research approaches would be an advantage.
• A postgraduate qualification in a relevant discipline.
• Experience of qualitative research in mental health.
• A passion for working with people with lived experience to improve services.
• An ambitious qualitative Research Fellow who wants to help shape this journey, working alongside people with lived experience, NHS and voluntary sector partners, and an interdisciplinary team of researchers to generate evidence that makes a real difference.

For an informal discussion to find out more about the role please contact Charley Hobson Merrett at charley.hobson-merrett@plymouth.ac.uk. 

This is a part time post working 22.2 hours per week on a fixed-term basis, starting 1st October 2026 for  48 months.

For more information about the job and the person specification, please refer to the job description.

A summary of our comprehensive benefits can be viewed here.

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