Senior Associate Director/ Deputy Director (Contracts, Grant and Patent Management)

This position is primarily to serve the core function of commercialisation of university intellectual property (IP) through technology translation/ development and licensing activities.

• Responsible for overseeing the operations of and supervising the Compliance, Contracts Management, Patent & Contracts Admin, and Grant Admin teams which provide admin support for the department’s intellectual property (IP) management and commercialisation activities.

• Drafting, reviewing, negotiating and advising on a broad range of commercialisation and IP-related agreements, including licensing, option, shareholders, technology development and materials transfer agreements.

• Working closely with managers of different functions within the department to conclude meaningful contracts/agreements to enable the development/translation of NUS IP and to guide on contractual strategy.

• Advising on the university’s innovation & enterprise activities, such as the structuring of proof-of-concept grant awards’ terms & conditions and the structuring of other commercial instruments to facilitate the translation of early-stage IP into investible opportunities.​​​​​​​

• Advising on the IP matters in relation to the university’s IP, spin-off companies and conflict of interest policies.

• Strong working knowledge of IP and technology related agreements and issues relating to academic research, university technology transfer and grant funding in Singapore.
• Comfortable being both hands-on and strategically supporting the university's innovation & enterprise initiatives on a wide range of IP, technology commercialisation and start-up matters.
• Ability to interact and work successfully with multiple levels of stakeholders, including academics, researchers, students, university administrators, entrepreneurs, industry executives, venture capitalists and external legal counsel.
• Experienced in public sector research environment (e.g., grant requirements, inter-institutional framework agreements, government agencies interest and programmes in innovation and outcomes, etc.)
• Minimum 10 years of demonstrated relevant work experience in negotiating contracts relating to transformation of early-stage research outcome into commercially-ready products or services.

• Working experience / familiarity with IP matters and the patent prosecution process.
• Working experience / familiarity with early-stage startup investments, corporate secretarial work and/or related fields would be advantageous
• Good working knowledge of Sophia Knowledge Management System or other IP and contracts databases will be advantageous
• Ability to deal with legal and non-legal issues holistically and with a sound level of maturity
• Strong analytical and communication skills (both verbal and written)
• Legal training and qualification an advantage.

Location: Kent Ridge

Organization: NUS Enterprise

Department : ​​​​​​​Technology Transfer and Innovation (TTI)