Assistant Professor (Research): Research Fellowship in Materials Science

Working at Durham University   

A globally outstanding centre of teaching and research excellence, a warm and friendly place to work, a unique and historic setting – Durham is a university like no other. 

As one of the UK’s leading universities, Durham is an incredible place to define your career. The University is located within a beautiful historic city, home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and surrounded by stunning countryside. Our talented scholars and researchers from around the world are tackling global issues and making a difference to people's lives.  We believe that inspiring our people to do outstanding things at Durham enables Durham people to do outstanding things in the world. Being a part of Durham is about more than just the success of the University, it’s also about contributing to the success of the city, county and community. 

Our University Strategy is built on three pillars of research, education and wider student experience, but also on our keen sense of community and of inspiring others to achieve their potential.  

Our Purpose and Values  

We want our University to be a place where people can be free to be themselves, no matter what their identity or background. Together, we celebrate difference, value one another and are each responsible for creating an inclusive community that is respectful and fair for all. 

Find out more about the benefits of working at the University and what it is like to live and work in the Durham area on our Why Durham? information page.    

The Department  

A World Top 100 department, the Department of Chemistry at Durham is one of the very best in the UK, with an outstanding reputation for excellence in research, teaching and employability of our students. We are an active and vibrant department, with a strong cohort of early career academics and future leaders. We hold an Athena Swan Silver Award, recognising our commitment to gender equality. Our undergraduate programmes are ranked fifth in the Complete University Guide 2023. At postgraduate level, our students come from all over the world to carry out research. 

Our research strategy is focussed around three interdisciplinary grand challenge themes: Chemistry for Health; Chemistry for Sustainability; and Chemistry for Change. Within these themes, we have prioritised eight core Research Focus Areas: Synthesis, Catalysis and Process; Sustainable and Resilient (Bio) Chemistry; Materials Discovery; Theory, Computational and Data-Led Chemistry; Soft Matter, Polymers and Interfaces; Chemical Photonics, Spectroscopy and Sensors; Drugs and Medicinal Chemistry; and Agritech and Aquaculture.  

There is a strong culture of collaboration within the department and with other departments and institutes within the University, including the Biophysical Sciences Institute, the Durham Energy Institute and the Institute for Data Science. There are also other multidisciplinary centres of excellence in the university that the appointee can interact with including the Centre for Global Infectious Diseases, the Durham Crop Centre and centres in Sustainable Chemistry and Soft Matter. We have strong links with many universities, research centres, and a long tradition of working closely with industry both in the UK and overseas. 

For more information, please visit our Department pages at http://www.durham.ac.uk/chemistry  

The Department of Chemistry at Durham University seeks to appoint a talented researcher and scholar to the role of Assistant Professor (Research).  We welcome applications from those with research interests in the broad field of materials science. 

This post offers an exciting opportunity to make an important contribution to research in the Chemistry Department at Durham University, while allowing the post holder excellent opportunities to develop their career in an exciting and progressive institution. 

Assistant Professors (Research) at Durham 

Assistant Professors (Research) are encouraged to focus on research but are also expected to engage in wider citizenship to enhance their own development, support their department and discipline, and contribute to the wider student experience.  

Academic colleagues are supported to publish excellent research in their area of interest with a focus on high quality outputs (including monographs and journal articles), rather than quantity. We aim to support your research needs, including practical help such as resources to attend conferences and to fund research activities, as well as a generous research leave policy and a designated mentor.  Applicants must demonstrate research excellence in the broad field of materials science, with the ability to fully engage in the services, citizenship and values of the University.  We strive to provide a working and teaching environment that is inclusive and welcoming and where everyone is treated fairly with dignity and respect. Candidates will be expected to demonstrate these key principles as part of the assessment process.

This is a 5-year fixed-term post. 

The successful candidate will ideally be in post around October 2024, or soon thereafter. 

Key responsibilities:  

• Pursue research that is world-leading in terms of originality, significance and rigour, commensurate with the Department’s continuing emphasis on international excellence; 
• To be developing clear plans for the pursuit of suitable national and international funding opportunities to support research and end-user engagement;
• Contribute to enhancing the quality of the research environment in the Department, the wider University and beyond through collaborative research activity; 
• Demonstrate a willingness to take contribute to the administrative work, citizenship and values of the Department; 
• To fully engage in and enhance the values of the Department;
• To contribute to attracting and supervising research students, and to enhance the Department’s commitment to its vibrant and international postgraduate culture; 
• Carry out such other duties as specified by the Head of Department.

Durham University is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion  

Equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) are a key component of the University’s Strategy and a central part of everything we do.  We also live by our Purpose and Values  and our Staff Code of Conduct.   At Durham we actively work towards providing an environment where our staff and students can study, work and live in a community which is supportive and inclusive. It’s important to us that all colleagues undertake activities that are aligned to both our values and commitment to EDI.  

We welcome and encourage applications from those who are currently under-represented in our work force, including people with disabilities and from racially minoritised ethnic groups.  

If you have taken a career break or periods of leave that may have impacted on the volume and recency of your research outputs and other activities, such as maternity, adoption or parental leave, you may wish to disclose this in your application. The selection committee will take this into account when evaluating your application.  

The University has been awarded the Disability Confident Employer status. If you are a candidate with a disability, we are committed to ensuring fair treatment throughout the recruitment process. We will make adjustments to support the interview process wherever it is reasonable to do so and, where successful, reasonable adjustments will be made to support people within their role. 

Person Specification  

Candidates applying for this Grade 8 post must meet all of the essential criteria.  

Research  

Candidates must have the capacity for and be progressing towards the independent development of internationally excellent research that produces high-quality outcomes, including some work that is recognised as world-class or that has world-class potential.   

Essential Research Criteria

1. Qualifications – a good first degree and a PhD in Chemistry, Physics or a related subject.

2. Outputs - evidence of high-quality outputs, some of which are recognised as world-class.  Candidates are asked to submit two research papers with their application (as outlined in the How to Apply section below).       

3. Personal Research Plan - evidence of a personal research plan (2 pages maximum) which supports departmental research and research impact. The Personal Research Plan will reinforce and/or complement our existing strengths in the broad area of materials science. The personal research plan should be no longer than 2 pages.

Service, Citizenship and Values  

This post is focused on research but candidates will be expected to actively engage in the administrative requirements of the Department, notably related to their research, and/or the research and research environment of the department. 

Candidates must positively contribute to fostering a collegial environment; as well as demonstrating their commitment to equality diversity and inclusion. 

Essential Services, Citizenship and Values Criteria

1. Citizenship contribution – evidence of participation in the citizenship/administrative activities of an academic Department, Faculty or University.  (Candidates may choose to evidence departmental or University roles, mentoring activity, pastoral and academic support of students, engagement with widening participation, involvement in equality and diversity initiatives and membership or engagement with external bodies). 

2. Communication - candidates must have excellent oral and written communication skills with the ability to engage with a range of students and colleagues across a variety of forums.   

Desirable Criteria

The desirable criteria for this post (for which candidates should provide evidence of some if not all criteria) are:

1. Income generation - engagement in the development of successful research project proposals.

2. PhD supervision - involvement in the provision of excellent supervision for PhD students.

3. Research Leadership - contribution to the leadership of research groups and the mentoring of early career researchers.  Candidates may choose to include information about research group leadership, mentoring of research colleagues, invitations to and engagement with external events, and/or involvement with international networks or projects.

4. Research Impact – evidence of the impact of research that the candidate has been involved with beyond the candidate’s institution.

5. Leadership - engagement in activities that contribute to the administrative functioning of the candidate’s academic department and/or discipline including any leadership or other responsibilities in an academic/research context.

Contact Information  

Department contact for academic-related enquiries  

Professor Ivana Evans ([email protected])

Contact information for technical difficulties when submitting your application  

If you encounter technical difficulties when using the online application form, we prefer you send enquiries by email.  Please send your name along with a brief description of the problem you’re experiencing to [email protected]   

Alternatively, you may call 0191 334 6801 from the UK, or +44 191 334 6801 from outside the UK. This number operates during the hours of 09.00 and 17.00 Monday to Friday, UK time.  We will normally respond within one working day (Monday to Friday, excluding UK public holidays).   

How to Apply   

We prefer to receive applications online.     

Please note that in submitting your application, we will be processing your data.  We would ask you to consider the relevant University Privacy Statement https://www.dur.ac.uk/ig/dp/privacy/pnjobapplicants/  which provides information on the collation, storing and use of data.   

If you are unable to complete your application via our recruitment system, please get in touch with us on [email protected] .   

What to Submit  

All applicants are asked to submit: 

• A CV  
• A covering letter which details your experience, strengths and potential in the requirements set out above; 
• Personal research plan, which should identify potential collaborations within Durham and suggest the most appropriate host research group.
• Two of your most significant pieces of written work, each accompanied by a short (half a page maximum) narrative summary of the importance of the paper and your contribution to this work.
• An EDI & values statement – (of no more than 500 words) which outlines work which you have been involved in which demonstrates your commitment to EDI and our values. i.e. involvement in quality, diversity, and inclusion activities such as mentoring, volunteering, or attending conferences  

Where possible we request that you provide accessible web links to your publications, which the hiring Department will use to access your work. The application form contains fields in which to enter each of the web links.  

Please note we are unable to access publications behind a paywall.   

In the event you are unable to provide accessible links to online hosting of your work, publications should be uploaded as PDFs as part of your application in our recruitment system.  

Please ensure that your PDFs are not larger than 5 MB. Your work may be read by colleagues from across the Department and evaluated against the current REF criteria.   

All application documents should be uploaded with your name and document type as PDF files.  

We will notify you on the status of your application at various points throughout the selection process, via automated emails from our e-recruitment system.  Please check your spam/junk folder periodically to ensure you receive all emails.  

Referees  

You should provide 3 academic referees they should not (if possible) include your PhD supervisor(s).  The majority should be from a University other than your own (save for early career applicants applying for their first post). 

Next Steps 

Short-listed candidates will be invited to the University, either virtually or in-person and will have the opportunity to meet key members of the Department.  The assessment for the post will normally include a presentation to staff and students in the Department followed by an interview and we anticipate that the assessments and interviews will take place over two days before October 2024. 

In the event that you are unable to attend in person on the date offered, it may not be possible to offer you an interview on an alternative date.