FaBA Innovation Pathways – Support Facilitator

• Food and Beverage Accelerator Program : Based in Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI)

• Exciting new opportunity for collaboration with researchers & industry partners

• Support the development of innovative food and beverage products and services

• Based at our vibrant St Lucia campus .

About the Food and Beverage Accelerator

Australia’s Food and Beverage Accelerator (FaBA) is a $160 million initiative to boost growth and innovation in the food and beverage manufacturing sector. Part of the Federal Government’s Trailblazer Program, FaBA leverages $50m of government investment with more than $110m from universities and industry. Partners work across four areas: the research programs ‘Innovative Ingredients’ and ‘Premium Food and Beverage Products’, and the enabling programs ‘Innovation Pathways’ and the ‘FaBA Training Centre’.

A national initiative, FaBA provides F&B manufacturers access to research teams, next generation industry professionals, state-of-the-art equipment and pilot facilities. FaBA is proudly hosted by The University of Queensland, in collaboration with participants QUT, UniSQ and UniQuest.

Join a community where excellence is at the core of our culture, contributions are valued and a range of benefits and rewards are available, such as:

• 26 weeks paid parental leave or 14 weeks paid primary caregiver leave

• 17% superannuation contributions

• 17.5% annual leave loading

• Access to flexible working arrangements

• Health and wellness discounts – fitness passport access, free yearly flu vaccinations, discounted health insurance, and access to our Employee Assistance Program for staff and their immediate family

• Salary packaging options

The Food and Beverage Accelerator (FaBA) Innovation Pathways

FaBA’s Innovation Pathways has been designed with industry input to address a gap in the provision of dedicated mentoring and services to businesses and researchers to more rapidly progress their technologies and products along the commercialisation pathways (TRL4-9). Innovation Pathways will provide industry and research participants with tools and partnerships to develop R&D that is evidence-based, customer-focused and market-driven. Successful scale-ups will be targeted for funding through UQ’s Investment Fund.

Innovation Pathways comprises two components:

The Insights Engine is a comprehensive new service to drive strategic thinking in the development of research priorities and will transform the way research opportunities are identified (industry pull as opposed to research push) and translated.

The Impact Foundry uses our evidence based insights to co-design and co-create highly targeted solutions to hurdles our industry participants face in delivering innovative food and beverage products to existing and new markets. . The process integrates tools, models, and frameworks from economics, finance, marketing and strategy and integrates these with food science knowledge to build fit for purpose solutions for companies.  We work with our partners and participants to achieve rapid skills development in key areas that speed pathway to market. The Impact Foundry will work closely with the Premium Food and Beverage, Training Centre, and Innovative Ingredients parts of FaBA as appropriate.

The Innovation Pathways stream of FaBA has professorial leads for each of its components. Professor Damian Hine from the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) leads the Impact Foundry.

About This Opportunity 

In this position, you will develop, coordinate and deliver activities designed to support the commercial development of new products and services for companies in the food and beverage sector. Industry participants from clusters and networks, start-ups, SMEs and large businesses will work with Innovation Pathways in FaBA to rapidly progress new products and services to market. The primary content delivered to participants is innovation, translation and commercialisation applied learning experiences as part of a team. You will work within a diverse team that combines food and beverage and innovation and commercialisation knowledge and experience. Team members include a Lead Facilitator, Learning Designer and Graphic Designer, Postdoctoral Fellow, Admin Officer and other support roles. You will be based at St Lucia campus.

Key responsibilities will include: 

Project Coordination, Delivery and Reporting

• Assist in the delivery of effective innovation, translation and commercialisation experiences nationally across post-farm gate food and beverage entities with the Lead Facilitator, Specialist Data Scientist, Learning Designer, Graphic Designer and Postdocs in the Innovation Pathways Team.

• Liaise with industry partners, including key food and beverage networks, start-ups, SMEs and established companies and individual participants in designing bespoke solutions for market needs.

• Utilise project management programs/applications/approaches to coordinate customised and accessible learning experiences for companies associated with the FaBA Innovation Pathways program.

Project Administration

• Provide project and administrative support, including the development of project-related documentation, monitoring and reporting on project plans, milestones and deliverables to meet the KPIs set at the outset of FaBA on time and at scale.

• Incorporate detailed knowledge of research commercialisation and innovation and translation to undertake project-specific analysis and research and contribute to the preparation of project briefs.

• Provide a range of secretariat and administrative services as required.

• Contribute to the identification and design of software tools and templates to automate and streamline production services with emphasis on good design and feedback.

• Maintain knowledge of current practices and future opportunities in innovation and commercialisation with particular focus on food and beverage sectors.

Financial Management

• Coordinating aspects of the project budget as required.

This role is subject to The University’s Code of Conduct .  

This is a full-time (100%), fixed-term position through to January 2027, initially appointed at HEW 6.1.

The full-time equivalent base salary will be $88,099.3, plus a generous super allowance of up to 17%. The total FTE package will be $103,076.20 annually.

About You  

• A degree with related industry experience in business or science – particular value will be given to food and beverage manufacture or development experience.

• Experience designing, developing and delivering innovation and commercialisation opportunities within the university or private sector.

• Demonstrated communication and interpersonal skills including the ability to consult and negotiate with stakeholders to ensure program objectives are met and the ability to work collaboratively with colleagues from a multidisciplinary background.

• Evidence of successful design and delivery of skills and training programs for start-ups, SMEs or large businesses.

• Evidence of successful industry and government collaborations established.

In addition, the following mandatory requirements apply:

• Work Rights: You must have unrestricted work rights in Australia for the duration of this appointment to apply. Visa sponsorship is not available for this appointment. 

• Background Checks: All final applicants for this position may be asked to consent to a criminal record check. Please note that people with criminal records are not automatically barred from applying for this position. Each application will be considered on its merits. 

Questions? 

For more information about this opportunity, please contact Professor Damian Hine – [email protected]  

For application queries, please contact [email protected] stating the job reference number (below) in the subject line. 
 

All applicants must upload the following documents in order for your application to be considered:

• Cover letter addressing the ‘About You’ section  

• Resume 

Please note that you will be asked to add all documents into the one upload box labelled ‘resume’, which is step one of the application form.
 

At UQ we know that our greatest strengths come from our diverse mix of colleagues, this is reflected in our ongoing commitment to creating an environment focused on equity, diversity and inclusion .  We ensure that we are always attracting, retaining and promoting colleagues who are representative of the diversity in our broader community, whether that be gender identity , LGBTQIA+ , cultural and/or linguistic , Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples , or people with a disability . Accessibility requirements and/or adjustments can be directed to [email protected]  

If you are a current employee (including casual staff and HDR scholars) or hold an unpaid/affiliate appointment, please login to your staff Workday account and visit the internal careers board to apply for this opportunity. Please do NOT apply via the external job board.

Applications close Wednesday 20 March 2024 at 11.00pm AEST (Job Reference Number R-36483).  Please note that interviews have been tentatively scheduled for late March.