Details
1109581
UCL
08/04/2026
12 Months
2 hours a week
Not Applicable
Pay
£20.57
£3.85
Description
Role
Unitemps are recruiting for STEP-UP Digital Research Technical Champion UCL PHD Students ONLY within the Centre for Advanced Research Computing department. The role is to work the date of Wednesday 8th April 2026 and will run until 30th March 2026 part time at 50 hours over a year. Payment is set at £20.57+ holiday pay per hour and the role will be HYBRID based.
Are you a current PhD student at UCL who is passionate about developing software, collecting, processing and managing data, or maintaining and running computing infrastructure? Do you want to promote best practices in your faculty or department?
Do you want to contribute to the advancement of technical skills and research excellence? If so, we invite you to apply for the role of Digital Research Technical Champion!
We are looking to build a diverse team of enthusiastic researchers who would like to inspire and engage their peers with new and interesting technical topics, tools and ideas. We'd like our cohort to include Champions from across UCL’s faculties and departments. Champions will get up to 50 paid hours to use flexibly over 12 months, to plan and undertake activities to help raise the profile of research software, data and computing infrastructure best practices within the research community at UCL.
Duties and responsibilities
Some examples of what you might do as a champion:
- Act as an advocate for good practice in research software development, data management, or the management of research computing infrastructure.
- Run a survey of your colleagues to understand how they develop software, manage data or work with infrastructure in their research, and what challenges they face.
- Investigate current use of digital best practices in your department.
- Run coffee hour or clinic sessions to engage departmental colleagues, answer technical questions and raise awareness of research software engineering, research data management and research infrastructure engineering.
- Run training workshops to deliver skills in key best practices.
- Host a research technical showcase for your colleagues (e.g. with a stand in your building’s lobby) to highlight software, data and infrastructure services offered within your university to departmental colleagues.
These are a few examples of how you might contribute as a Champion. We’ll also provide the opportunity for you to get input and support from technical experts.
This initiative is part of the STEP- UP plarform here. Read about STEP-UP’s 2025 Champions intake in a blog post from the University of Westminster here.
Skills and experience
Up to 50 hours to use flexibly over 12 months, depending on the activities you plan, paid at your university’s highest graduate teaching assistant rate
You will also get:
- A chance to meet and work with other PhD students from across UCL and other universities in London who are interested in research software, data and computing infrastructure.
- An opportunity to raise your profile as someone who cares about supporting the development of high quality, sustainable research outputs.
- An opportunity to develop links and build your network across your university, working with people from a range of different research and central functions.
- A chance to support your peers and share your knowledge, skills and enthusiasm for research technology
- Understand the challenges of research software development, data management, and computing infrastructure within their faculty/department/college/school.
- Raise awareness of the importance of good digital practices in modern research.
- Promote the use of good practices in software, data, and infrastructure management and the benefits these practices offer.
- Deliver core skills to support the use of improved digital practices.
- Engage with departmental colleagues through e.g. surveys, coffee hours, clinic sessions, training workshops, and showcases.
The primary requirement for the role is enthusiasm for supporting a community of peers and learning new skills in research software, data or infrastructure. We don’t need you to be a software, data or infrastructure expert when you start, just to have an interest in your chosen area, especially if you work in a discipline which does not traditionally have a computational focus
For more information, contact Victoria Yorke-Edwards, Senior Research Data Steward, UCL Centre for Advanced Research Computing v.yorke-edwards@ucl.ac.uk, or Isabella von Holstein, STEP-UP project and community manager, i.von-holstein@imperial.ac.uk
Location
Hybrid
Additional information
You will be a current PhD student at UCL with at least 11 months remaining as of 1st April 2026 before you plan to submit your thesis (i.e. will not be submitting before end February 2027).
Please note to be eligible to work within this role, you must have the right to work in the UK, be physically based in the UK and be able to travel to our London based office for a RTW check (if required). This job will close for applications at 11.59pm on Tuesday 24th March 2026. Interviews will be held shortly after.
Unitemps reserves the right to close this advert for applications prior to the date specified above, if a high volume of suitable applications are received.
If you have a full-time contract of employment with UCL, you are not able to work through UCL Unitemps at the same time.
Unitemps payroll is monthly, one month in arrears, please see the payroll dates here.
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