Job Specifications
Research Associate
Advert Reference Number: 1248
Job Location: Milton Keynes, Remote/Hybrid
Department: IET Academic
Salary: £38,784 to £46,049 pro rata
Closing Date: 14 December 2025
Weekly Working Hours: 26.25
Contract Type: Fixed Term Contract
Fixed Term Contract: End Date: 7.5 months from start date
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About the Role
This is a part-time fixed-term contract offering 26.25 hours per week.
This is a dual role offering an exciting opportunity to be involved in the initiation phase of the successful delivery of the new Research Capability Hub (RCH) funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and contribute to the delivery of research career development activity across the Open University.
The RCH will provide UK-wide research training and capacity building (TCB) for social scientists, and this role will be an integral part of the delivery team.
The project will develop a new Hub for delivering research methods courses, transforming research training, enhancing accessibility and inclusion, and fostering community engagement of social science researchers across the UK. The Hub is committed to capacity building to enable its long-term sustainability and fulfil its strategic and impact agenda. The Hub will work with partners in the four nations and beyond, and has received a grant of £4.9 Million, with options for follow-up funding if the RCH meets the success criteria. More information about the RCH and its partners can be found here (Research Capability Hub | Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University).
The research associate will work in a vibrant team of 20+ researchers, professionals, and technical experts from different UK institutions on a range of tasks, including:
Support, test, develop, and evaluate a unified, streamlined access point for the Hub for UK social scientists
Support launch event in January 2026 with relevant training providers and stakeholders
Support and deliver Evidence-cafes and Q-methodology to identify what social scientists want in terms of research skills and training.
Work effectively with other training providers and integrate existing resources in the Hub platform.
Help to support effective instruments/approaches to categorise training activities, and support the development of validated instruments (pre-post) to measure expected impact
This role is based within the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) and will be line managed by the Project Co-Lead.
Key Responsibilities
The successful candidate will contribute and support all the activities the OU is leading on or is involved with. Duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited:
To lead the initial mapping and curation of existing resources and trainings for social science researchers across different providers (ESRC and others).
Contribute/co-design the Hub’s evaluation plan.
To co-design a number of social science trainings contributing original insights to social science research training.
To collect and analyse data (qualitative and quantitative) from initial course participants and project partners as needed.
To contribute to the design of evaluation instruments for assessing programme’s impact on social science training.
To co-produce reports and high quality publications in collaboration with project leads.
To co-design an online Open Learn training in collaboration with partners.
To monitor and report on programme progress using learning analytics data.
To contribute towards gaining ethical clearance for research activities from the OU.
To liaise closely with the OU PI and other team members as needed.
To contribute to the development and implementation of the Data Management plan.
To attend project meetings and events as required and make presentations if needed.
Support preparations for the RCH launch event and other RCH events
To undertake other duties as may be reasonably requested and that are commensurate with the nature and grade of the post.
About You
Essential Skills and Experience
A completed PhD in Educational Technology, Technology-Enhanced Learning, or other relevant field.
Experience of using participatory, co-production methods in research, ideally social science research methods.
Experience of conducting and analysing quantitative data such as interviews, focus groups, observations.
Experience of conducting and analysing quantitative data such as online surveys, learning analytics.
Ability to work collaboratively in a team, ideally in interdisciplinary teams.
Experience of authoring or co-authoring academic outputs (e.g., journal articles, books, research reports)
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About the Company
The Open University is an expert in flexible higher education that fits around your working life.
We don't make you choose between a degree and a salary - more than 76% of our students are in full or part time work, while 86% FTSE 100 companies have funded staff on OU courses.
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