Senior Research Associate in Infant Development


Company:	Lancaster University
Salary:	£39,906 to £46,049 a year
Hours:	Full-time
Location:	LA1 4YW
Job type:	Temporary
Posting date:	23 Sept 2026
Closing date:	14 Oct 2026

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Summary

The Department of Psychology at Lancaster University is seeking to appoint a full-time Senior Research Associate, to join a research project on infant language development.

The project you will be working on is titled “The Origins of Infant Word Learning”, and is funded by the Leverhulme Trust. This project will investigate how hearing words influences how infants perceive and recognise objects, and how this process ultimately leads to word learning.

ABOUT YOU

The successful candidate will:

Be able to demonstrate relevant educational attainment and research experience in the area of infant and/or language and cognitive development.
Have experience of conducting infant behavioral research.
Be able to demonstrate competence with designing and conducting theoretically-driven developmental research, state-of-the art data analysis, open science practices, scientific writing, and critical thinking.

THE BENEFITS OF THE ROLE

Generous holiday leave - 25 days (pro-rata) annual leave plus University closure days and bank holidays.
Access to employee pension scheme, and annual flexible benefits scheme.
We are committed to promoting Equality, Diversity and Inclusion across the Faculty, and supporting family-friendly and flexible working policies on an individual basis. The Department holds an Athena Swan Silver Award, which recognises and celebrates good employment practice undertaken to address gender equality in Higher Education and research.

The Psychology Department is a busy teaching and research active Department. It is home to a friendly group of around 40 Academic staff, with teams of Research, Professional Services and Technical staff. The Department supports a large cohort of Undergraduate students; a thriving group of Masters and Postgraduate research students; and a wide range of research projects including several cross-institution grants.

Further information about the Department is available at: http://www.psych.lancs.ac.uk

Please upload a cover letter with your application.

We welcome applications from people in all diversity groups. We expect a start date by January, 2027. The post is for 16.5 months.

This role is indefinite, subject to funding, which is currently only available until December, 2028.

Informal enquiries are welcome and should be addressed to Dr. Jill Lany, Senior Lecturer, at j.lany@lancaster.ac.uk.

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