• Question: Hi. I would love to become research active, particularly around the area of sleep and children in early years. Has anyone got any tips about good places to start? Should I be contacting related departments at the local universities and/or local research school networks? Thank you.

    Asked by radeakin to Jessie, Jo, Liz, Lucy, Paul, Yana on 22 Jan 2018.
    • Photo: Jo Taylor

      Jo Taylor answered on 22 Jan 2018:


      Hi there! One good place to start might be to see whether any local universities are doing research on topics related to the ones you’re interested in. If you find their psychology or neuroscience research webpage then you should be able to find contact details for academics studying these things. Most psychology departments will have someone doing research on child development, but not so many will have researchers interested in sleep. Then you can get in touch with the academic directly and ask whether they might have any research assistant work – this might be paid or unpaid.

      The sort of work you can get will depend on your qualifications… What is your current job? And do you have a degree and in what subject? Depending on these things another way to go would be to consider doing a masters qualification, for example in psychology, or neuroscience, or developmental psychology. Different universities offer different courses.

      I hope that is vaguely helpful?!
      Jo

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