Research Associate: Role Definition

Research associate

A staff researcher (often post-doctoral, sometimes post-master's) employed in a role with substantive scientific contribution and a degree of intellectual independence, typically more senior than a research assistant but not yet an independent principal investigator.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 21 May 2026

Ask about Research associate

Answers are drawn from this dictionary entry and the rest of the CASRAI corpus, with a link to every source.

Answers are AI-generated from CASRAI’s own published pages and can be wrong, so check the linked sources before relying on one; your question is logged without personal data — never sold, never used to train a third-party model — to show us what CASRAI is missing, so please do not type personal or confidential details. How we use this

In UK academic grading, research associate is grade 7 (above RA at grade 6); in US the term is less standardised. The role often includes mentoring of more junior researchers and may include some teaching. May lead to senior research associate, research fellow, or PI track.

References

UCEA UK Higher Education Academic Pay Grades
Vitae Researcher Development Framework

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="Research associate"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/research-associate" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/research-associate",
  "name": "Research associate",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/research-associate",
  "description": "A staff researcher (often post-doctoral, sometimes post-master's) employed in a role with substantive scientific contribution and a degree of intellectual independence, typically more senior than a research assistant but not yet an independent principal investigator.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/mentorship-career-stages#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/research-associate",
  "sameAs": [
    "Senior RA",
    "Post-doctoral research associate (PDRA)"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-05-21T02:01:41",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}