King's College London

About us:

The Department’s research interests span a wide range of mental health disorders and physical health problems, including anxiety disorders, trauma, somatoform disorders, pain, psychosis, depression, antisocial personality, disorders in childhood and adolescence, emotion and personality, and neurodegeneration. In physical health, we work at the interface between physical health and mental health and wellbeing, focusing on the development and evaluation of new psychological treatments and on understanding the mechanisms that maintain psychological distress. Much of our past work has informed UK national treatment guidelines in mental and physical health. The breadth of research expertise has broadened considerably with the recruitment of ‘basic’ cognitive and social psychologists whose interests intersect with and extend our existing profile in translational and applied research.  

Link to Department of Psychology webpage: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/psychology

This work forms part of a larger grant led from the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre

About the Faculty

The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) is a Faculty of King's College London and the largest academic community in Europe devoted to the study and prevention of mental illness and brain disease.

The IoPPN pioneers research into new and improved ways of understanding and treating mental illness and brain disease.  The IoPPN's greatest strength is the interdisciplinary nature of both its research strategy and educational activities, providing unique opportunities for students and staff.

Link to IoPPN webpage: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/index.aspx 

About the role:

This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a new Wellcome Trust funded Discovery Award to examine prediction of clinical outcome in anxiety. A key psychological mechanism that maintains anxiety is the tendency to generate negative interpretations of unclear or ambiguous information (known as interpretation bias). We have developed a novel online intervention using cognitive bias modification of interpretations (CBM-I) to ‘train’ people with anxiety problems to develop a more helpful cognitive bias to generate positive interpretations, which effectively reduces anxiety. In the current project we will use cognitive, genetic, clinical and demographic information to predict outcome at the end of the CNM-I intervention and at follow up.

Specifically, in this project we will adapt and tailor the intervention for people suffering from anxiety who have different ethnic identities. The research programme will involve a large-scale study to examine prediction of individuals’ outcome from a course of CBM-I.  The study will recruit 4300 anxious people to complete CBM-I intervention used by Hirsch et al 2021.

The successful candidate will have excellent project management skills including ability to organise and motivate others. They will have excellent communication and presentation skills, and will demonstrate flair, enthusiasm, innovation and leadership when faced with challenges. Their role will be to provide strategic, tactical and operational management input in the planning and execution of the project. They will help refine the intervention prior to the large-scale experiment. They will take a lead role in write-up and contribute to a range of other dissemination activities, as well as the set-up, running and closure of the large-scale clinical study. The successful candidate will be part of the wider Wellcome Discovery award team at KCL, as well as Prof Colette Hirsch’s Cognition in Emotional Disorders and Resilience group, at the Department of Psychology. They will work closely with other members of the grant award team, particularly those within the Emotional Development, Intervention and Treatment (EDIT) Lab led by Prof Thalia Eley in the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre.

This is a full time post (35 Hours per week), and you will be offered fixed term contract until 30/12/2027.

About you:

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

Essential criteria

1.      Degree in psychology at least at 2.i level or higher and PhD in a relevant subject (e.g. psychology or human clinical neuroscience). 

2.      Project management including the ability to use initiative to prioritise work for self and others, to predict, identify and resolve problems that are critical to a large-scale study and plan strategically to avoid them. 

3.      Promotion of effective multi-disciplinary team working using a flexible, adaptable team-working attitude, with an ability to supervise and monitor a team with tact and diplomacy. 

4.      Ability to show attention to detail and high standards of accuracy in all aspects of work.  

5.      Excellent telephone manner, letter, report and scientific writing skills, ability to persuade and deliver information effectively through presentations.  

6.      Experience of PPIE involvement in research and dissemination and a good understanding of co-design approaches. 

7.      Proven experience of all stages of conducting a large-scale experiment and or clinical trial from start-up to closeout. 

8.      Excellent IT skills in the following areas: word processing, communication software, R/STRATA/SPSS, internet searching, Endnote, spreadsheets.  

9.      For Grade 7: In addition to the above, experience managing a large scale experiment or clinical trail from start up to close out that involved supervising  a team to deliver high quality research in a timely manner. 

Desirable criteria

1.      Understanding of regulatory requirements such as UKCE marking. 

2.       Experience conducting cognition and emotion research.

3.      Experience running a digital intervention studies or trials (particularly cognitive bias modification).  

4.      Experience working with anxious people. 

5.      Good understanding of R&D, Ethics, funding and sponsor organisations. 

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click “Apply Now”. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further information

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community. 

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.

Interviews are due to be held on 25th September, 2024 

We are able to offer sponsorship for candidates who do not currently possess the right to work in the UK.

This post is subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service clearance.