Researcher New

We are seeking a temporary Research Assistant to support a project led by Jo Underwood and The Policy Institute at King?s College London over the summer of 2025. The role will focus on drafting an initial report summarising preliminary findings from research conducted in 2024?25.

Project Overview:

• The research examines how London?s local authorities process in-person homelessness applications.
• FOI requests were submitted to all London boroughs by Jo and King?s Legal Clinic.
• Additional qualitative research has included stakeholder interviews and a roundtable exploring the impact of closed in-person referrals on A&E departments.

Research Experience 

Key Responsibilities:

• Conduct a short literature review on the impact of ?closed-door? local authority practices on:
  • People experiencing homelessness
  • A&E and emergency healthcare services
• Review and quality-check existing data (FOIs, interviews, roundtable notes)
• Draft a short-format report and/or public-facing outputs (e.g., blog posts, opinion pieces) to support future funding efforts

The King's Festival of Artificial Intelligence is returning between Tuesday 20 and Saturday 24 May 2025, with a series of public events, including lectures, workshops and demonstrations, exploring artificial intelligence with researchers from across King's. The festival will take place across multiple venues: the Strand Campus, Science Gallery London, Guys Campus, and the London Institute of Healthcare Engineering. 

In order to support with the smooth running of the festival, the KIAI is looking for up to ten event assistants. Event assistants will be responsible for supporting the KIAI team and lead event assistants to register attendees for events, support attendees to navigate King?s, and support event deliverers with any requirements during events. Interviews for the position will be held online on 6th and 7th May (with some flexibility to work around candidates? other commitments). 

Successful candidates will ideally be expected to work on at least two days between 20 and 24 May. Hours of work are varied but shifts will take place between the hours of 9am and 9pm each day. Event assistants may be required to attend a compulsory paid briefing/training session before their first shift.

Key responsibilities

Your responsibilities will vary but in general you may be expected to:

• Greet and register attendees to festival events including staffing the registration desks at the entrance to festival venues.
• Support attendees to navigate King?s including finding the correct venues for their events and make use of King?s facilities, including staffing the navigation desk outside the Great Hall. 
• Support event organisers to distribute materials at the beginning or during an event and collect these at the end. 
• Support with Q&As during events, for e.g. through use of microphones. 
• Support attendees to complete evaluation forms at the end of events (if required). 
• Report any issues that cannot be resolved immediately to a member of the KIAI team or a Lead Event Assistant.
• For Family Zone event assistants: support families attending the event, signposting to available facilities and assist in managing any queues for demos.
• This list is not exhaustive and event assistants may be asked to undertake reasonable duties in line with the role to ensure the smooth-running of the festival. 

N/A

Essential: experience of supporting events including but not limited to academic seminars, conferences, university open days, and outreach events.

Essential: strong communication skills, and willingness to communicate with the general public. 

Essential: excellent organisation and time management skills with the ability to multitask. 

Desirable: interest in data science and/or AI OR public engagement opportunities. 

Desirable: experience of communicating and/or working with young people (under 18).

Desirable: first aid trained.

Desirable: fire marshall trained. 

Desirable: DBS checked. 

What is it? 

King's Academy serves as the Education ?Think Tank? for the University, working both on strategic priorities for education and to foster a supportive and progressive academic culture across the institution, in partnership with faculties and through our collaborative relationships with staff, students and external partners. This is done through: 

• Events, workshops, conferences and awards. 
• Consultancy and input into policy development. 
• Dedicated support for Faculties. 
• Funding for staff and students working on educational projects. 
• Supporting staff to gain professional recognition for their teaching practice and/or support of students. 
• Major strategic projects e.g. Transforming Assessment for Students at King's (TASK), education for sustainability, inclusive education, student-staff partnerships, AI and Education, curriculum and programme design, and much more.

King's Academy is developing its support in curriculum development across the university. We are taking a student-centred design approach to curriculum development, which puts students? needs, their realities and aspirations at the heart of the design process for new university courses. We are now developing resources to support academics in this process.  

Two student interns will support the programme and curriculum design lead at King's Academy in creating resources which illustrate and summarise how students experience their curriculum, what motivates and inspires them and what challenges they face on their learning journey.  

We are particularly keen to elevate the needs, voices and aspirations of students who identify as belonging to an historical/currently marginalised and/or unrepresented group in Higher Education. 

How to apply

In your cover letter please address the following questions:

1. What interests you most about this role? We are keen to hear about your motivations for applying for this role.  

• This role is open to current postgraduate taught students at King's.  

• Students who can demonstrate an interest in the development of university curricula and curiosity for how teaching and learning is organised as well as how fellow students experience their learning journey within their own subject and beyond.   

The following skills, knowledge and experience will be helpful in this role: 

• Knowledge and experience in qualitative data collection and/or user experience projects. 
• Communication skills, in particular active listening and oral communication. 
• Capacity to work independently as well as part of a team.