Department: CP-Life Research Centre/School of Physiotherapy
Reporting to: Dr Grace Lavelle
Location: 123 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2
Contract/Duration: Specified purpose contract for up to 2 years
Remuneration: €33,292 - €43,372 (SFI Research Assistant Salary Scale)
Closing Date: 26th of August 2025
RCSI is a community of academic, research, clinical and professional staff working collaboratively to lead the world to better health. Here, you will thrive in an innovative and inclusive atmosphere and your personal development and wellbeing will be supported. We invite you to join us to help deliver on our exciting mission “To educate, nurture and discover for the benefit of human health”. We seek candidates whose experience to date has prepared them to contribute to our commitment to the “Race Equality Action Plan 2025-2029” at RCSI. Our students come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds. This makes our university stronger and ensures we hire the best talent.
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About Our Research
RCSI recognises that excellence in research is critical to the quality of its educational activities, its credibility, and, overall, to its mission to enhance human health. RCSI’s research strategy aims to build upon its strength in translational biomedical and clinical research to deliver transformational, high impact changes in health care. Targeting both Irish national and EU funding, along with increased collaboration with industry, is a major part of the RCSI research strategy. Forging increased collaboration between RCSI PIs and industry is of critical importance to achieving success in this area. RCSI is also committed to provide its researchers with the supports and developmental opportunities to enable them to continuously grow and support their overall career development.
Summary of Post
This post is funded as part of ELEVATE, a 5-year research programme focused on early brain injury and Cerebral Palsy (CP), funded by SFI (now Research Ireland) and the Cerebral Palsy Foundation through SFI’s Strategic Partnership Programme.
Population-based CP registries have existed on the island of Ireland and internationally for several decades. These registries aim to collect population data on CP to inform and improve understanding of the condition, to raise standards of care for people with CP, disseminate knowledge for people with CP, health professionals and key stakeholders, and facilitate research. Notably, two major networks that pool data from population-based registries, the Surveillance of CP in Europe (SCPE) and the Australian CP Register (ACPR) networks, have advanced understanding of trends in birth prevalence and profile of CP internationally. However, there is currently no active CP Registry in the Republic of Ireland.
We are seeking to recruit a Research Assistant to support the development and implementation of an Irish National Cerebral Palsy Registry. The Research Assistant will support and report to Dr Grace Lavelle (Registry Manager)/Dr Jennifer Ryan (Director CP-Life Research Centre), and work closely with the National Office of Clinical Audit (NOCA). NOCA establishes and maintains national clinical audits across several clinical areas including intensive care, major trauma, hip fractures, arthroplasty, and mortality. NOCA is funded by the Health Service Executive Quality Improvement Division and operationally supported by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). The purpose of NOCA national clinical audits is to improve the quality of care provided to patients and to improve their outcomes.
Specifically, the duties of the post are:
- Work closely with the wider development team, including the Registry Manager, Principal Investigator, Clinical Lead, Technical Lead, NOCA, and steering committee
- Support with public involvement initiatives
- Support with developing all necessary protocols and documentation
- Support with developing training and education materials
- Co-ordinate data sharing agreements and database management
- Obtain ethical approval as required
- Create data dictionaries/meta-data
- Support with site engagement with local clinical teams
- Support with process mapping and testing at sites
- Support with training site personnel
- Monitor and escalate data quality issues relating to the registry
- Organise team, steering committee and advisory group meetings
- Work on communication strategy development and implementation
- Assist in planning, writing, design and analysis of data for reports including national reports, summary reports, quarterly reports, peer-reviewed publications, Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) communications
Qualifications – (Essential):
- Degree or MSc in relevant discipline including data management, computer science, data science, health and social sciences
- Project Management training would be desirable
Knowledge & Experience – (Essential):
- Proven experience of managing data/databases or other relevant project management experience
- Proven experience of developing documentation/protocols related to data management/data access/project management
- Understanding of GDPR and data protection
- Excellent administrative and organisational skills
- Strong IT/software skills (including design, project management, word processing etc.)
- Meeting management experience (e.g., scheduling, minute taking)
- Flexibility: can operate flexibly within a busy environment, shift focus when required, prioritise conflicting demands
- Demonstrates initiative and also ability to work as part of a multi-disciplinary team
- Conscientious and motivated individual
Knowledge & Experience – (Desirable):
- Experience of research or clinical audit methodologies (i.e., data collection, validating, reporting)
- Cognisant of research processes and procedures
- Track record of building positive working relationships with relevant stakeholders (e.g. clinicians, academics, participants)
- Experience developing/implementing communications strategy
- Dissemination experience e.g. webpages, infographics, videos
- Strong problem-solving skills
- Knowledge of cerebral palsy
- Understanding and experience of research ethics process
- Driving licence and access to car
- Engagement with patients and the public involvement (PPI) initiatives
We are all too aware that imposter syndrome and the confidence gap can sometimes stop fantastic candidates putting themselves forward, so please do submit an application — we’d love to hear from you.
Application Process
Please apply online through the RCSI careers portal on the closing date with your CV and cover letter.
Click here to read our Recruitment and Selection Policy for Researcher.
Informal Enquiries:
Informal enquiries are invited in the first instance through Clarissa Disconzi, Human Resources Departmen (email: [email protected]). All applications for this post must be made through the career's webpage www.rcsi/careers. Clarissa can arrange for relevant queries on the academic aspects of the role to be addressed by the hiring manager. Please note we do not accept CVs directly.
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