Head of Academic Training

The Head of Academic Training is a new and exciting role at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. At our world-leading genomics research and training organisation, this is a key and high profile position, sitting in the Director’s Office and reporting to the Institute Director.

The Institute’s Postgraduate programme is a large and important cohort with ~80 students and ~140 Postdoctoral fellows.

About the role:

As Head of Academic Training you will be responsible for developing the Institute’s strategy for its Postgraduate and Postdoctoral training programmes, for their operational delivery, and for line management of the administrative staff that support the programmes (currently an Administrator, Senior Administrator and a Programme Manager).

Developing future scientific leaders in genomics is one of the key elements of the Institute’s Impact Framework, and you will have a strong passion for mentoring and training the next generation of scientific leaders and, where necessary, providing pastoral care. You will have previous experience in academia, ideally having held a research group leader role, with significant experience of directly supervising and mentoring your own Graduate students and Postdoctoral fellows.

About the you:

You will need strong emotional intelligence, excellent communication skills, the ability to clearly present ideas and solutions, develop and successfully introduce new initiatives, be organised, a self-starter, and able to work under pressure with multiple competing demands. You will be responsible for the programme budget and will need experience of forecasting and managing budgets.

Essential Skills
Strong desire to mentor and train the next-generation of scientific leaders
Independent scientific group leader experience in an academic research setting
Direct experience of managing postgraduate training activities in an HEI or other academic research organization
Good understanding of the best practices in postgraduate training and mentorship
Excellent scientific writing skills and demonstrable experience of writing strategic documents (such as grants, reports, policies, guidelines)
Excellent communication skills and the ability to clearly present ideas and solutions both verbally and in writing
Experience of developing and introducing new initiatives
Excellent organizational skills and the ability to balance conflicting priorities
Excellent attention to detail
Pragmatic and creative approach to problem-solving
Able to work effectively under pressure, with high level of resilience and emotional intelligence
A clear understanding of issues of confidentiality

Other information
See job description for full profile of job accountabilities.

Closing date for applications: 12th June