Xiaohongshu
Welcome to research volunteering through the Community Research Initiative
You’ve already built great research skills at uni — critical thinking, making sense of loads of info, handling data, sharing your findings, and solving real problems — and our charity‑partner research volunteering projects let you put all of that into action on real‑world challenges. You get exciting cross‑sector experience, and charities get genuinely useful research to power their work. Total win‑win energy.
How do I get involved?
From qualitative researcher roles to evaluation projects, there's bound to be a role to suit you. Express your interest on each role to take the first step.
The best part? Projects refresh every term so there are always new opportunities to keep you engaged.
Keep an eye on your emails because some organisations may require more details (e.g. letter of interest) before selecting students for the projects
Click the button above to get support from our team about your application
Get onboarded, get trained up, and attend a project kick off meeting with your fellow teammates. Projects should last anywhere from 3-6 months and should be flexible to suit your study needs as a student.
We'll be in touch to check in and provide support throughout the process from [email protected]. You can also reach out if you're having any issues or want advice
Research volunteering opportunities
We want to give you the chance to take your classroom skills and apply them in the real world. Check out the types of roles we offer below:
- Literature reviewer
Developing best practice recommendations, scoping sector practice, scoping existing interventions, evidence gathering for decision making, synthesizing academic research.
- Qualitative researcher
Data collection + analysis with optional summary report.
Methods: Focus groups, interviews, ethnographic research, informal conversations, observations, survey creation and delivery, oral histories, collecting testimonies.
- Quantitative researcher
Data collection + analysis with optional summary report.
Methods: Statistical analysis, survey creation, geographical information services, using publicly available datasets, statistical modelling, developing databases, data cleaning.
- Data Analysis researcher with report
Cleaning, analysing, and synthesising quantitative or qualitative data with a report write up.
- Archival researcher with report
Sorting existing archival material, developing new archives, researching through existing archives.
- Evaluation design researcher
Developing a rigorous evaluation framework to measure impact of programmes or services.
- Researcher report writing
Case study development, contributing to impact reports, contributing to funding or grant reporting.
- Co-creation researcher with stakeholders
Leading co-production workshops, co-creation activities, facilitating listening circles.