Research Assistant - Academy Forum Study of Gambling

Research Assistant – Academy Forum for the Study of Gambling

Join to apply for the Research Assistant – Academy Forum for the Study of Gambling role at The University of Sheffield
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This range is provided by The University of Sheffield. Your actual pay will be based on your skills and experience — talk with your recruiter to learn more.

As a research assistant, you will join a team working on the project “Understanding and improving engagement and retention in NHS gambling treatment services”, led by Professor Matt Field and funded by the Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling. You will provide specialist research support, particularly extracting and coding information, merging different datasets, and securely managing data. You will work closely with other members of the project team and stakeholders including clinicians and people with lived experience of treatment.

The overarching aim of the project is to use machine learning methods to understand why many people who are referred for treatment will drop out prematurely. To do this, two studies are planned. One will use a machine-learning‑driven content analysis of referral notes and use this information, alongside contextual factors, to distinguish who is likely to attend their initial assessment versus who is not.

The other study will use data from initial clinical assessments alongside contextual factors and treatment characteristics to identify characteristics of people who complete treatment and people who drop out prematurely, again using machine learning methods. Important outcomes from the project include developing and validating tools that can identify service users who require additional support or different forms of support to help them remain engaged with treatment.

This tool can be applied in future work and can inform additional research that will develop and evaluate interventions to improve engagement and retention in treatment.

The research assistant will play a key role in preparing and managing the datasets, including extracting, cleaning, merging, and coding data from clinical records, and supporting the development of initial analytic pipelines for supervised machine learning models.

• Support research that applies advanced quantitative methods to identify predictors of engagement and retention in NHS gambling treatment services.
• Extract, code, merge and securely manage information derived from healthcare records.
• Contribute to research governance, including applications for ethical approval.
• Ensure data management complies with data protection legislation and information security requirements.
• Engage with stakeholders, including clinicians and people with lived experience of treatment for gambling disorder.
• Attend and contribute to project meetings and other relevant meetings in the School of Psychology and at the University.
• Make ethical decisions in your role, embedding the University sustainability strategy into your working activities wherever possible.
• Carry out other duties commensurate with the grade and remit of the post.

• Undergraduate qualification in a relevant subject such as a BSc in Psychology, Computer Science, Data Science, Health Informatics, or another health‑related field.
• Experience working with large, complex multi‑variable health or clinical datasets that include identifiable and sensitive information.
• Excellent organisational skills, including ability to work to deadlines and manage your own workload.
• Recent experience of working with NHS systems, including healthcare records.
• A postgraduate qualification in a relevant subject area, such as an MSc in Data Science, Health Data Analytics, Health Informatics or Computational Social Science.
• Experience with Natural Language Processing (NLP) or text mining, particularly for extracting information from free‑text clinical notes, referral forms, or similar unstructured data.
• Knowledge of open research practices and willingness to engage with them (e.g., preregistration, preprints, data sharing).
• Interest in and knowledge of gambling addiction and its treatment.

Grade: 6

Salary: £32,080 to £33,951 (grade 6.1 to…