Research Assistant/Associate

We are a world class research-intensive university. We deliver teaching and learning of the highest quality. We play a leading role in economic, social and cultural development of the North East of England. Attracting and retaining high-calibre people is fundamental to our continued success.

Salary
Research Assistant: £33,951 - £35,608 per annum, pro rata.
Research Associate: £36,636 - £38,784 per annum, pro rata.

The Role
We are seeking to recruit a researcher with a background in Interaction Design and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) or related fields, to work at Open Lab in the School of Computing as part of our UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Innovate UK funded project on Secure Software Development for Resilient Growth ("CV-Record").

We invite candidates with strong research skills, and ideally with expertise and professional experience practicing participatory design in sensitive contexts and with vulnerable communities.

CV-Record is an exciting 17-month but no later than 31/01/2028 responsible design innovation programme led by TOU App LTD (LibertiTec) in partnership with Newcastle University's Open Lab, London South Bank University and LCR Ventures Ltd (Lyva Labs) that will develop and evaluate a domestic abuse survivor-controlled, court-admissible secure digital evidence capture tool.

The research involves engaging with domestic abuse survivors and with the ecosystem of services around them, to co-design, develop and evaluate the secure digital evidence capture tool as well as defining its data governance.

In this researcher role, you will be immersed in the creative and cross-disciplinary environment of Open Lab, working closely with the project co-investigators and partners across sectors, to conduct collaborative research and co-define requirements for the design and data governance of the tool and its evaluation. As a research group, Open Lab has international profile in the HCI field for pioneering participatory, civic, and community-centred approaches to technology design.

During this 17-month post, empirical (real-world) research activities will include running meetings and design workshops with survivors and working with the ecosystem of services around them, doing qualitative, and preparing research reports for publication.

You will be supported throughout the post by the CV-Record academic team, who will provide ongoing mentoring and guidance on research design, data collection, analysis, communication and dissemination activities, working collaboratively and with people from diverse backgrounds.

This role presents a unique opportunity for you to develop your research experience and leadership, contributing to novel research innovation and service design in sensitive areas at the intersection of survivor-centred design, social justice and law. You will develop research on collaborative design methods to understand complex and sensitive contexts and needs of domestic abuse survivors; and generate implications for the design of a domestic abuse survivor-controlled, court-admissible secure digital evidence capture tool.

You will benefit from taking part on high-impact business-led research and being based within the multi-award-winning Urban Sciences Building on the Newcastle Helix site, in the heart of Newcastle upon Tyne.

This position is available immediately on a four-day (29.6 hours per week) workweek 0.8 FTE basis for the first 12 months, moving to full-time for the final 5 months, fixed-term basis post start date.

For informal enquiries about this position, please contact Dr Clara Crivellaro clara.crivellaro@newcastle.ac.uk or Prof Abi Durrant abigail.durrant@newcastle.ac.uk.

For more information about Newcastle University’s Open Lab, please click here.
For more information about the School of Computing and our research, please click here.

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