Senior Research Support Officer

Job id: 083926. Salary: £37,332 - £42,099 per annum, including London Weighting Allowance.

Posted: 05 February 2024. Closing date: 29 February 2024.

Business unit: IoPPN. Department: Mental Health and Psychological Sciences.

Contact details:Nawaf Ibrahim. [email protected]

Location: Denmark Hill Campus. Category: Professional & Support Services.

The Senior Research Support Officer is a new role within the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) following a reshaping of Professional Services (PS). The role is based within the School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences (MHaPS) and will primarily provide high-level administration support to the Departments of Psychology and Biostatistics & Health Informatics (BHI), supporting other Departments as required.   

The role holder will work closely with researchers to manage the end-to-end grant lifecycle and is responsible for overseeing and actioning pre- and post-award processes to ensure awards are managed in accordance with funder and University policies.

The role would suite someone who has significant experience within research grant administration, with good attention to detail, able to effectively manage their time and is able to build and maintain effective working relationships across the School, Faculty and University.

The role will provide individuals with a wide variety of experience and skills working across research administration in a large and complex School and Faculty, supporting the individual to progress their career within research administration across the University.  

This post will be offered on a full-time, indefinite contract.

Pre-Award

• Manage pre-award administration for standard funders, ensuring awards are correctly costed, are compliant with funder guidance and input into the research grant portal (WorkTribe) – escalating more complex grants as required.
• Provide support to the Research Support Manager in the management of specialist funders (international, industry and clinical studies).
• Support award activation in collaboration with RMID, ensuring due diligence and providing funder portal guidance.

Post-Award

• Support the management and monitoring of expenditure against research budgets in collaboration with researchers, ensuring compliance with College and funder financial policies and regulations.
• Manage finance requests related to research funds, supporting financial policies and processes around procurement, VAT, licensing, import duties and service level agreements.
• Proactively address ineligible costs and support research teams in record keeping for audits.
• Manage end-to-end recruitment processes for research funded staff.
• Action any grant extensions, supplements, or no cost extensions in collaboration with RMID post-award team.
• Oversee reporting to Principal Investigators.

General Duties

• Line management of Research Support Officer/s.
• Deputise for Research Support Manager as required.
• Support general business of the School and Departments as required.
• Keep up to date with relevant training, policies, and processes.
• Support and minute relevant School committees as required.
• Identify, implement, and continuously review data and processes to ensure delivery of responsibilities.
• Establish strong working relationships across the School, Faculty and Research Management and Innovation Directorate (RMID).
• Work autonomously and collaboratively across the School’s PS research support team, delegating and allocating work effectively and setting standards for administrative procedures and processes within the School.
• Actively contribute to relevant School and Faculty committees, meetings and networks as required.
• Facilitate an inclusive culture and ethos working across the IoPPN community.
• Undertake at least one safety role (e.g., fire marshal, DSE assessor, safety representative) as required, following all the relevant training.
• Spend up to 15% of time contributing to cross Faculty / University initiatives and professional development (in discussion with line manager).

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

Essential criteria  

1.      Strong knowledge and skills of research support acquired through relevant posts, demonstrating development through progressively more demanding work/roles.

2.      Working knowledge and experience of grant management processes, systems and budget monitoring.

3.      Working knowledge and experience of HR processes, software, and regulations.

4.      Experience of Worktribe, Unit4 Business World and PeopleXD or other university equivalents.

5.      Proficient levels of numeracy and experience of budget management and costings.

6.      Relevant working experience of using Excel, Word and other Microsoft applications (e.g., SharePoint).

7.      Effective communication and interpersonal skills in order to receive, understand and relay complicated ideas or information to various groups of all levels.

8.      Effective at working independently, and as part of a team, able to take own initiative & decisions with minimal supervision.

9.      Exceptional organisational skills with an in-depth knowledge of a range of practices, methods and procedures to deliver effective and efficient support.

Desirable criteria

1.       Experience of managing staff, giving feedback on performance levels and providing training/coaching.  

Candidates should specifically address the essential criteria outlined in the Person Specification in their covering letter.

The School of Mental Health & Psychological Sciences encompasses the four departments of Psychology; Social Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry; Health Services & Population Research; and Biostatistics & Health Informatics. It includes more than 100 Principal Investigators, with research programmes spanning a range of areas from childhood to old age, from basic research through treatment development and implementation, and on to healthcare and society. It is home to many of the basic and evaluative sciences (e.g. psychology, health economics, statistics, informatics) that underpin research at the faculty; and expertise (psychology, service research and improvement science) that improves the impact of scientific breakthroughs at KCL and King’s Health Partners. It is also home to King’s first BSc Psychology Programme that launched in 2015 and continues to have a thriving cohort.    

www.kcl.ac.uk/mental-health-and-psychological-sciences