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Research Budget Officer - Research Support Services - 97660 - Grade 6

Employer
University of Birmingham
Location
Birmingham, United Kingdom
Salary
£27,511.00 - £33,797.00
Closing date
Jul 19, 2021

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Position Details

Research Support Services - Finance Office

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £27,511 to £30,046, with potential progression once in post to £33,797

Grade - 6

Full Time - Fixed term contract upto 7 months.

This role is also open as an internal secondment opportunity which would need to be agreed by your current line manager.

Closing date - 20th July 2021

Job Summary

The role sits in the Research Development and Support (RDS) Team in Research Support Services and is part of the setup to encourage and support members of academic staff to take part in research activities. More specially, the role involves providing proactive and hands-on support to research and academic staff in relation to research budgeting aspects e.g. costing of research grant applications, and associated activities such as submission of proposals and acceptance of successful grant application.

The post holder is expected to provide authoritative views on any aspect of the work and will have a strong ability for problem-solving as well as customer focussed approach. This role will require liaising with academic staff in Colleges and outside the University e.g. collaborators as well as funders.

Research Support Services (RSS) is a division of the Finance Office and supports the entire lifecycle of research across the University. RSS, alongside other Professional Services such as Business Engagement and Strategic Planning, form part of the wider research support ecosystem of the University. The RDS Team in RSS provide support to all public funders including charities and is composed in 6 individuals teams, based in the Colleges and one specialist EU&I team. The post holder will be part of one of the College teams (College of Medical and Dental Sciences, MDS).

Main Duties and Responsibilities:

Budgetary and technical support for research proposal development and submission
  • Kept fully abreast of funders' financial Terms and Conditions (T&C), requirements, guidelines and eligible costs for research proposals, as well as funders online systems for submitting grant applications and accepting awards.
  • Provide expert advice and support for preparing comprehensive research budgets, and for costing and pricing of research proposals (ranging from basic science projects to clinical trials) as per specific funder T&C, guidelines and requirements and taking into consideration full economic costing (fEC) principles where relevant. This will include expert input for staff costings (including clinical staff, day rates, increments etc), VAT requirements, equipment, facility charges, overheads and other directly incurred and directly allocated costings (where relevant). It will also include legal information required by certain funders (i.e. tenders) such as University's insurance details.
  • Proactively liaise with applicants (both in cases where University Investigators lead a bid and when involved as Co-Investigators) to discuss their budgetary needs for their proposals and advise them on eligible and non-eligible costs, hence ensuring budgets are maximised and expected research elements (e.g. public engagement activities) are costed.
  • Develop expertise of utilising University's costing tool (work tribe), ensuring work tribe records are timely and accurately populated.
  • Input budgetary information on funders' grant submission portal.
  • Complete financial checks of research proposals (work tribe records, funders' portals) ahead of bid submissions.
  • Manage approvals for financial matters regarding research budgets (sub-FEC bids, match funding for equipment etc) from designated signatories within the College.
  • Provide training to applicants around budget preparation and costings for research proposals (including utilising work tribe) either via 1:1 meetings or via workshops.
  • Update and prepare research budget and costings resources for RSS colleagues and applicants.
  • Provide additional ancillary activities related to proposal submission such as basic check on font size, number of pages, types of attachments, etc.

Grant Award acceptance
  • Manage the process of accepting awards from funders, including reviewing budgets and making changes to budget lines stipulated by funders, updating work tribe records and completing funders' portals, liaising with applicants and working closely with Grant Set Up, Contracts and Post Award Finance teams for setting up new awards.
  • Process supplements for awarded projects in a timely fashion, working closely with RSS colleagues (e.g. post-award finance team).

Contributing to continuous improvement of research development support infrastructure
  • Work collaboratively with colleagues in the RDS Team and other RSS colleagues (Grant Set Up Team, Post-Award Finance Team, Contracts Team etc) to continually seek process and systems improvement, develop or capture best practices in research budget and costings support, help with the implementation of both local and institutional-wide systems and processes and optimise reporting frameworks (e.g. work tribe usage).
  • To identify and raise issues regarding the functioning of budget and costings systems and processes, suggesting solutions when possible.
  • When necessary, participate and contribute to research budget-related working groups.

Other
  • To undertake any other relevant duties as required by the MDS Research Development Manager (MDS RDM).
  • Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications and Experience Required:
    Multitasking, detail-oriented, deadline-conscious and flexible individual who is able to engage proactively with academic staff in order to support them with their grant applications and awards, with regards to budgetary considerations. The post-holder will be/have:
    • Knowledge of the UK research funding ecosystem (e.g. UKRI, NIHR, medical charities) from the perspective of eligible costs and financial T&C and requirements for developing and submitting research proposals
    • Experience of advising on budgets and preparing costings for research grant applications. Experience with costing for clinical trials is desirable.
    • Experience of accounting and related workflows (e.g. requisition, tenders, grant award acceptance).
    • Highly organised individual who has the ability to handle a large amount of requests and information.
    • Solution-oriented person, able to quickly gasp news concepts and knowledge, work independently and successfully adapt to new circumstances.
    • Numerical, analytical and reasoning skills as well as attention to detail.
    • Customer-focused skills, with experience in supporting academics.
    • Time-management skills, being able to prioritise a varied workload and meet tight deadlines.
    • Communication skills: oral, written and presentational, being able to summarise key points to other colleagues, clarify funders' financial requirements, provide training, prepare resources.
    • Interpersonal skills, working collaboratively and effectively with colleagues.
    • Experience with IT tools and in particular MS Office, funding portals, databases and reporting systems.

Informal enquires to Antonia Chatzopoulou Chatzi, email: A.ChatzopoulouChatzi@bham.ac.uk

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We value diversity and inclusion at the University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community and are open to discussions around all forms of flexible working.

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