Study with us

Study or work alongside us creating new knowledge about neurodevelopment and diversity.

Doing an undergraduate or taught masters project linked to the SMRC offers a range of advantages. Students can partner with the Salvesen Mindroom Centre, aka Mindroom, our sister-charity, to embed their projects in real-world settings. Mindroom can advise on real world priorities, and help shape projects that can be implemented, e.g. via our influential policy brief series. Mindroom and SMRC may also be able to support recruitment in some cases, via their social media, mailing list and wider networks. Meanwhile the SMRC can facilitate access to a range of measures for data collection and a small library of relevant texts. In addition, we plan to host an end-of-year online meeting (around November graduation) giving students the chance to share the results of their work with an audience of practitioners, neurodivergent people and their families.

In the 2024/25 academic year we are particularly interested to host student projects exploring aspects of neurodiversity at work, focusing on intersections of neurodivergence and poverty, and considering support provision, such as:

Charting experiences of transition into work, including early employment experiences as an adolescent: what works and what doesn’t?
What is a good workplace induction process for a neurodivergent staff member?
Experiences of reasonable adjustments at work
Employee and employer perspectives on diagnostic disclosure at work, and outcome from this
Exploring the intersection of neurodivergence and living in a deprived neighbourhood
Describing the experience and outcomes for neurodivergent young people growing up in poverty
Collecting information about what services and supports currently work best for neurodivergent young people, and whether there are any barriers to accessing these more universally
Finding out which neurodivergent young people’s needs could most feasibly be met by digital provision, as opposed to professional support
What are the needs of parents and carers who are working while supporting a neurodivergent child (and how does this vary with the age of the child?)

In addition, Mindroom are keen to build on previous projects with research on each of the following topics:

Why do records of young people in higher and further education show such a small proportion of people with additional support needs compared to numbers in school? Specifically, what are the barriers to registering with disability services at college / university for new students?
Where do parents of neurodivergent children and young people find information about their child's diagnosis and their child's rights?

If you are a student at the University of Edinburgh, and have an interest in one of these projects please reach out to a supervisor in your department (you can review our list of associate members, but your supervisor does not need to be on that list) and show them this web page. If they’re interested to supervise a project related to one of our flagged topics, please notify us via salvesenresearch@ed.ac.uk and we will:

Introduce you and your supervisor to the Mindroom team
Support your project as much as we can – you need to let us know what help you need, e.g. with recruitment or buying questionnaires
Offer you the chance to draft a policy briefing or lay summary based on your work
Invite you to an end-of-year research showcase event

If you are looking for PhD opportunities and would like to enquire about project supervision in the Salvesen Mindroom Research Centre, please review our People page and contact the individual supervisor you would like to work with. Projects can be on anything that fits your and your supervisor’s interests.

If you’re looking for a voluntary position you can email us, but you should be aware that we are unlikely to have many opportunities unless you are already connected to the University of Edinburgh, and / or NHS Lothian. This is because of the important restrictions that govern our work with children and young people.

Study with us

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