Programme Manager (Strategic Research Fund)

The University

At Durham University we are proud of our people. A globally outstanding centre of educational excellence, a collegiate community of extraordinary people, a unique and historic setting - Durham is a university like no other. We believe that inspiring our people to do outstanding things at Durham enables Durham people to do outstanding things professionally and personally.

Across the University we have a huge variety of roles and career opportunities, which together make us a large and successful community, which is a key hub of activity within our region and nationally. We would be thrilled if you would consider joining our thriving University. Further information about the University can be found here .

The Role and Department

Research and Innovation Services (RIS) provides guidance, expert advice and hands-on support for all aspects of research and research-related work, including securing funding, working with partners, undertaking knowledge exchange, demonstrating impact, commercialising outputs, ensuring good research practice and supporting professional development.

Durham has ambitious plans to grow our institutional research income and recognise that to enable this we need to make significant investments in our research community and environment. We are therefore establishing the Durham University Strategic Research Fund (SRF), which will offer our academics the chance to bid for substantial investments to be made into our research community through new appointments.

The Programme Manager will be the primary contact for the SRF, working closely with the Director of Research and Innovation Services (Research Development and Operations) to manage the fund and support the wider academic community in engaging with the opportunity and delivering the successful projects. This will involve (for example);

• leading on all communications and development of materials related to the SRF;
• dealing with queries on the SRF and discussing suitability of early stage SRF ideas with applicants;
• providing support to the decision making panel (e.g. collating call documentation, disseminating paperwork, minuting meetings, collating feedback for applicants);
• providing costing support for all SRF proposals;
• supporting the development of Full Business Cases (including for example in areas such as risk management, financial sustainability and governance);
• liaising with Departments, Faculties and University Research Institutes to ensure approvals are in place for SRF proposals and awards;
• collaborating with other professional service directorates (such as Durham’s Development and Alumni Relation Office, DARO) to explore cross-division opportunities (e.g. for match funding);
• managing post-award of SRF investments including reporting on progress and managing annual review meetings;
• supporting successful teams with delivery of their SRF awards including (for example) supporting queries relating to HR and recruitment of new staff.
• supporting the parallel “pre-SRF” process to identify early-stage ideas including (for example) highlighting the opportunity to the academic community, discussing ideas, managing the pitch event, building a pipeline of projects, and offering other general support.

We are looking for a candidate with strong project management skills, with an ability to work with a diverse array of stakeholders, managing multiple projects and processes at any given time. We will expect the successful candidate to be very proactive, working to help identify ways to improve processes and better support our academic community to help ensure the success of the SRF.

The Programme Manager will be line managed by the Director of Research and Innovation Services (Research Development and Operations). You will work alongside various teams within RIS, particularly the Research Development and Operations teams, and with other professional service directorates across Durham including (for example) HR, Finance and the Development and Alumni Relations Office (DARO).

There will also be an expectation that at time the Programme Manager will support other ongoing initiatives led by RIS, dependant on workload. This will be managed at the discretion of the Director of Research and Innovation Services.