Research Development Manager (12-Month Maternity Cover)

This job is brought to you by Jobs/Redefined, the UK's leading over-50s age inclusive jobs board.

About us

The Health Research Development team supports research income generation activity across the four health faculties at King's. Our team focusses on helping faculties deliver King's health research priorities. Our work is enormously varied and ranges from supporting the implementation of major organisational strategic priorities, to supporting individuals seeking their first research grant. We help group leaders, departments, schools and faculties develop their plans for grant acquisition, provide insight into funder priorities and processes, and support the development of grant proposals from concept, to drafting, to interview preparation. We also run a variety of internal funding streams and selection processes to manage funder application caps.

About the role

This role will provide an excellent opportunity to develop your career in a 12 months fixed-term maternity cover for a senior role, responsible to the Director of Research Development (Health). You will provide part of our support to the world leading Institute of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience, working closely with academic staff to understand their research funding goals, encouraging and supporting applications to appropriate opportunities from concept to award offer and managing internal selection processes. Using your professional services and academic networks you will work with colleagues across the University to maximise opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.

To thrive in this role you'll bring a strong grounding in a relevant field of research with deep understanding and experience of how health research funding works, ideally complemented by experience in research strategy development. You will be solution focussed, with an organised and adaptable approach and be able to quickly understand complex concepts.

In this fixed term position it will be particularly important that you bring the motivation and personal qualities to quickly build relationships with senior academic staff and professional service colleagues to understand their goals and challenges and help address them. We expect that to require a significant amount of in-person working. In return we offer a flexible and collaborative working environment, working in a team that is highly valued by the scientists you will work with.

This role is advertised at Grade 8 and is suitable for candidates with substantial experience in research development or research management at a funding body. In exceptional cases, we may consider appointing at Grade 7 (£53,149 to £62,422; inclusive of London Weighting Allowance) for candidates who demonstrate a strong fit for the role but have less experience at this level.

This is a full time post (35 Hours per week) with some scope for reduced hours on enquiry. You will be offered a 12-month contract starting no later than May 2025.

For an informal conversation, please contact Alasdair Rankin, Director of Research Development (Health): alasdair.rankin@kcl.ac.uk .

About you

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1. Graduate degree or equivalent experience in a subject relevant to health sciences
2. Significant relevant experience of working in an academic research or research funding environment
3. Deep understanding of the health research funding landscape and experience of supporting the research development pipeline from concept development to application, through funder review processes
4. Deep experience of managing relationships with scientists, with proven impact and a customer focused mind-set, motivated to help academics find timely solutions to their problems
5. Excellent communicator and listener, able to quickly understand and explore key scientific concepts, and to interpret and explain complex information with clarity and confidence. An experienced and effective facilitator, able to lead individual and group conversations that deliver actionable insight.
6. Excellent writing skills, with demonstrable experience of delivering clear, structured outputs that deliver results. Excellent qualitative and quantitative analytical and problem solving skills, with a solution focussed approach.
7. An engaging and inquisitive individual who thrives on building trusting relationships with experts and stakeholders at all levels. Builds and maintains good working relationships with colleagues to foster team spirit, commitment to the team and achievement of shared goals.
8. A confident decision maker, who knows when to ask permission and when to inform. Comfortable with ambiguity and able to work flexibly and at pace in a rapidly changing environment. An independent thinker, able and willing to challenge the status quo, with the ability to achieve goals through influence and negotiation in a complex organisational environment. High level of work organisation, self-motivation, resilience and determination, drive for performance and improvement, and flexibility in approach and attitude.

Desirable criteria

1. PhD or equivalent research experience in a subject relevant to health sciences
2. Experience of running scientific peer review processes
3. Experience of initiating, managing and delivering strategic projects with proven impact

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click "Apply Now". This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further information

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community. We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our 'How we Recruit' pages.

Interviews are due to be held in late March.

We are not able to offer sponsorship for candidates who do not currently possess the right to work in the UK.