Clinical or Non Clinical Research Fellow (Prudence Trust) - King's College London / UK

Job description
We are looking for an outstanding post-doctoral researcher to undertake the Prudence Trust Fellowship in Children and Young People’s Mental Health at Kings College London. The Fellowship is aimed at early- to mid-career researchers with either clinical or non-clinical  background who have a strong research track-record in the field for their career stage. The Fellowship will start between December 2023 and  March 2024, and funding is available for 3-years (full-time) or 4-years (part-time).

Research conducted during the Fellowship should be focused on improving outcomes for children and young people (8-25 years) who experience depression and anxiety or are at risk of developing these conditions. In particular, existing effective interventions are too often not available or not used effectively, creating a substantial treatment gap for these conditions, and new research is urgently needed to provide models to dramatically increase accessibility.

Some questions you might consider include:

• What can be done to ensure that young people are offered the treatment that is most appropriate for them at the right time?
  How can assessments and diagnosis be improved to result in better outcomes for young people?
  What can be done to make evidence-based therapies easier to deliver at scale whilst still retaining effectiveness? How can these therapies be delivered more cost-effectively?
  What evidence-based therapies can be adapted to be more suitable for particular at-risk groups?
  What needs to be done to promote acceptance and uptake of interventions in clinical services? What are the barriers and how can they be overcome?
  How can we influence policy to ensure research is implemented.

Our interest is in early intervention and treatment of anxiety and depression but understand that these conditions co-exist with other mental health conditions (e.g. obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorders). We are therefore open to research relating to these other conditions, as long as it is likely to have wider, positive impact on young people with anxiety or depression.

This fellowship is open to researchers in any discipline (and can be interdisciplinary) but we expect most applicants to be working at a clinical translational interface, as we hope the research will lead to practical applications and real-life change.

Application deadline: 4th June 2023

For all details, including application criteria, process and application form, please visit the King's College London website