Durham University
GCCS Research Assistant
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The Department
The Global Centre for Contextual Safeguarding (GCCS) launched in September 2025, building on the work of a decade-plus, world-leading, Contextual Safeguarding Programme. It is now part of Durham's Sociology Department, whose members, postgraduate researchers, and students collectively develop'sociological imagination' and apply it to contemporary processes and issues. The Department was ranked 1st for Criminology in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024, and ranked 4th for impact in REF 2021.
The GCCS builds on this history- an interdisciplinary Centre based in Durham's Sociology Department with direct integration with Law, Business, Education and Psychology, it brings together departments across the four faculties of the University to:
- Transform how societies understand and deliver services that safeguard young people beyond their homes;
- Create systems that look beyond the capacity of parents to protect children;
- Build sustainable partnerships in which safeguarding is truly everybody's business.
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This is a Centre committed to a radical transformation in how safeguarding is conceptualised, studied, and practiced, and by whom.
The Role
To continue developing the Centre's capacity to enact this change, we are recruiting a number of roles this year -one of these is a part-time GCCS Research Assistant who will work in the GCCS under the direction of the Senior Leadership Team. The role will sit across multiple workstreams to provide support to centre operations and research projects, with particular attention to integrating and reflecting the voices of children and young people into our developing work programme.
We are welcoming applicants with an interest in social justice; we anticipate such applicants having varied academic and professional journeys, potentially holding, or be working towards, a Masters Degree in Sociology or Social Research Methods.
The postholder will be required to undertake support tasks including:
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- Working with other RAs in scoping existing research;
- Converting knowledge generated by staff across the GCCS into accessible and practical resources;
- Supporting the team with a range of research and operational activities across multiple ongoing projects;
- Supporting bid development activities across the Centre.
GCCS activities take place in multiple locations across the UK and beyond, so most team members work to a hybrid model, with research underway in various parts of the UK as well as via online data collection methods, and wider Centre activity taking place mostly online with occasional in-person meetings and working days. Travel to research sites and for impact and dissemination activities may be required, and travel for these activities is paid for by the Centre. The normal place of work is Durham, and you will be expected to be present in Durham for essential GCCS business as required (to be discussed with your line manager).
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