Working with us
Find out how you can work with SARIC, including collaborations with other research groups.
Opportunities
Contact us to learn more about how to get involved emailing saric@sussex.ac.uk .
Paid positions
Junior Research Associate (JRA) Scheme
Every year, undergraduate students at Sussex apply to receive a bursary to conduct eight-weeks worth of summer research with faculty, including with members of SARIC.
Students interested in the JRA scheme should be motivated to continue with postgraduate education. In addition to working with faculty and conducting research, students in the JRA programme are mentored by current PhD students. Learn more about the Junior Research Associate Scheme and how to apply from the Sussex Undergraduate Research Office.
Placement and volunteer positions
Year-long placements
Undergraduate students often complete placement-year research in SARIC laboratories. Both the University of Sussex Student Hub and School of Psychology provide support on applying for placements, which can be found on CareerHub.
Volunteer work
Volunteer and conduct research with support from SARIC staff members, including during the summer. These opportunities are not always advertised, so contact SARIC or staff members directly to find out more.
External engagement
We want to increase engagement with our community and local mental health professionals. We encourage community members, local leaders, mental health professionals, and those with lived experience with addictions to contact us to see how you can become involved in our ongoing work and the development of novel projects.
We want to foster discussion of how we, as faculty at the University of Sussex, can tailor our research to suit local needs better.
We also work closely with the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Kent, Surrey and Sussex (ARC KSS) to develop research relationships.
Research collaborations
A major objective of SARIC is to collaborate both with teams at the University of Sussex and with national and international organisations.
Example collaborations include:
- Assessment of problematic gambling in student populations (Prof Simon Dymond, University of Swansea;
Dr Glen Dighton, King's College London).
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Preclinical development of pharmacotherapies for harmful gambling (Prof Simon Dymond, University of Swansea; Prof Henrietta Bowden-Jones, Founder and Director of the National Problem Gambling Clinic; Tony Parente, GamLEARN, Lived Experience & Recovery Network).
- Designing screening methods for excessive attraction to reward-associated stimuli, which may influence addictive behaviours (Dr Ellie Dommett, King's College London; Prof Paul Overton, University of Sheffield; Dr Clair Rostron & Dr Christopher Heath, The Open University).
- Assessing contextual influences on addiction-related affective and motivational states (Prof Aldo Badiani, Sapienza University).
Professional affiliations
SARIC staff are active members of many professional organisations, helping to support public conversation about addictions:
- Society for the Study of Addiction (SSA)
- British Neuroscience Association (BNA)
- European Behavioural Pharmacology Society (EBPS)
- Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS)
- Society for Neuroscience (SFN)
- British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP).