About this role
Department
The Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex wishes to appoint a quantitative researcher as a Senior Research Officer to work on enhancement of the Understanding Society Study, in particular in relation to health and biomarker data collection.
Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) is a major household panel survey funded by the Economic and Social Research Council with co-funding from some government departments. It began in 2009 and incorporated its predecessor the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) and includes a test bed sample, the ‘Innovation Panel’ (IP). At waves 2 and 3 (2010-2012) of the main survey, clinical and biological data were collected by a nurse visit to the participants’ home. Experiments to examine mode effects on biomarker collection were implemented in IP12 (2019). A new biomarker wave (Wave 16: 2024-2026) has just completed using remote collection protocols and an experiment to examine response rates for microbiome collection is in preparation to be collected in IP18 (2025). The study is multi-topic and designed to meet the research needs of a range of disciplines across the social and bio-medical sciences.
Understanding Society is seen as world-leading in its survey design, provides unique longitudinal data on within household dynamics for the UK and has a high international profile.
Duties of the Role
Working with the Understanding Society biomarker team and liaising between contractors and biological laboratories, the postholder will focus on creating and managing genomic datasets from the new samples collected in Wave 16. The postholder will integrate these data into the Understanding Society dataset and contribute to a research and capacity-building programme focusing on the role of multi-omics and their contribution to understanding health and society.
The post requires an understanding of biological, genetic and epigenetic data, especially as they relate to population studies, and a commitment to rigorous evaluation to provide the highest quality data collection as it relates to health and biomarkers.
Skills and qualifications required
Applicants should possess, or be nearing completion of, a PhD in quantitative social, epidemiology or health sciences, with a focus on bioinformatic or -omics. Candidates must have experience in conducting advanced quantitative analyses using large-scale, complex survey data. Proficiency in data management, statistical analysis and programming is also required.
A full list of applicant requirements can be found under the Person Specification section within the job pack.
This is a fixed-term appointment to provide temporary maternity cover for an existing employee. This is a research position only and there are no teaching duties associated with this post. Duties will involve access to Government systems, information or data and will be subject to the staff vetting process. Further information can be found in the job pack.