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European and International Funding Officer - Finance Office

Employer
Global Academy Jobs
Location
United Kingdom
Salary
£30,395.00 - £42,036.00
Closing date
Sep 8, 2019

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Job Details

Position Details

European and International Research Support - Finance Office
Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK
Full time starting salary is normally in the range £30,395 to £39,609, with potential progression once in post to £42,036
Grade 7
Full Time - Permanent
Closing date: 8th September 2019

The University of Birmingham is one of the most ambitious institutions in the UK and we are determined to be placed in the global top 50, with investment and strategic plans in place to enable us to achieve our objectives. The University is one of the most successful participants in the European Union funding programmes and from other international agencies. We are looking for a talented and committed individual to join the European and International Research Support Team.

Job Summary

Research Support Services (RSS) provide academic staff with a range of support for their research across the full research lifecycle. RSS is composed of several teams covering the development and funding of major strategic themes, College-based research development, dedicated support for accessing EU and International funding, to a range of key post-award support services including research finance, research contracts, ethics approval, and sponsor oversight of clinical trials.

The European and International Funding Officer post sits within the European and International Research Support Team (EU&I). The team covers the whole lifecycle of a project (from pre to post award) and provides specialist support to academic staff for the development and delivery of research activities funded by foreign public bodies.

The EU&I Team supports pre-award activities to over 300 applications every year to foreign funding bodies including European Commission and the NIH, across all five academic Colleges, as well as post-award activities to 170+ live projects. The EU&I Team plays a key role in contributing to the University of Birmingham's strategic framework and annual achievements. On average, the Team helps with the capture of over £20 million of grant awards are secured annually from the European Commission and there is a strong ambition to increase the awards from over overseas sources. The Team also leads on key external research engagement activities including the University's Europe Hub (formally Brussels Office) and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre.

Job Purpose

The post holder is responsible for seeking and disseminating information in a proactive, timely and targeted manner related to European (European Commission e.g. H2020 and Horizon Europe and other agencies) and International (with a particular target on US federal agencies) research funding opportunities. In doing so, he/she will motivate academic staff to apply, and provide dedicated support and guidance in development of research proposals in response to these funding opportunities.

He/she will be expected to provide authoritative views on any aspect of the work and will have a strong ability for problem solving, going the extra mile as well as an ability to adapt in a timely manner to the evolving opportunities or challenging environment For example: the post holder will be expected to adapt and be involved any University's Brexit-related contingency plans and preparation. Dynamism and flexibility are key skills for this role, so is the interest for a large range of international funding opportunities that are emerging.

This role will require sound interpersonal and influencing skills as the post-holder will be expected to liaise extensively with staff both across the University and outside the University from local to international organisations including the European Commission.

The post holder will support academic staff in one or more of the five academic Colleges and become the main contact point in the Team for the College(s). He/She may be called to support specific activities in other Colleges too, as and when required, including covering for colleagues, organising/attending meetings/workshops and commenting on applications from other Colleges.

Main Duties

Dissemination of funding opportunities

Ensure that funding opportunities related to non-UK domestic funds and in particular Horizon 2020 and NIH are disseminated in a timely and efficient manner to increase number of grant applications and motivate academics to apply to various sources of funding, including emerging ones. In particular, this will entail the following:
  • Building up and deliver a timely, targeted and relevant and proactive funding dissemination strategy that ensures (i) there is a match between our research breadth and strengths and opportunities available; (ii) academic areas are very well informed about opportunities, and motivated to take those up in order to ensure that academic culture and appetite for considering international funding is high (see task below); (iii) reaching areas and academics within those that are not the usual suspects; and (iv) advertise and make the most of new and non-traditional schemes.
  • Respond to queries and requests arising from the dissemination activities, from academics and academic management. This may include provide briefing notes, giving presentations or taking part in activities.
  • Adapt and support new international funding opportunities that go beyond traditional ones as they arise This will involve to work closely with the EU&I RDM in order to define timely priorities.
  • Developing a tailored way of communicating the funding opportunities to the College academic community. Ensuring that academics are informed in the most efficient way and ensure a high visibility of the post-holder and the EU&I Team, including through existing College channels, research committees, away-days, social media, meeting with academic management, and ensuring that academics are met on one to one basis as often as possible.
  • Matching funding opportunities with areas of academic strength, capacity and excellence, and pro-actively suggesting unusual or new routes of funding accordingly, or traditional schemes that are not disseminated or utilised to their full potential. For example: this means an ability to encapsulate the academic culture of the College and finding ways to change and/or enhance the way academic staff are applying in order to increase the number of applications and match the evolving funding landscape.
  • Mapping out wherever possible what funding opportunities academics can go for in both the short and medium term, either as the lead applicant or collaborator, and what needs to happen in order to achieve these. For example: pushing for more fellowships rather than collaborative projects or the contrary.
  • Responding to general and specific queries form academic and professional staff on European and International funding programmes and opportunities in a timely and professional manner.
  • Playing an expert role in informing his/her College RDM and Research Leads about research engagement activities thereby providing regular and organised oral and writing briefings on EU&I funding opportunities and state of play. He/she will also be expected to actively liaise with the College Research Offices to gather on-the-ground intelligence of academic interests and relay information on funding opportunities through their existing channels.
  • Recording and reporting on interests, activities and results.


Idea Development and Bid Support

Ensure that applications submitted from the University are developed and crafted in such a way that they are within the successful percentile cut-off. In particular, this will entail the following:
  • Discussing and ensure that the scientific or scholarly concept underpinning a research project matches the funding scheme applied for and supporting the development of the narrative, and that the initial idea is spun in such a way that it addresses the aims of the scheme.
  • Respond to queries on schemes providing authoritative view and accurate answers. Comment in detail on all draft applications in a timely manner. This will include providing thoughts and solutions in order to improve the full application to specific sections including sentences and paragraphs or as well as provide additional or alternative ideas to develop the design of the project whenever possible.
  • Support aspects that are not concerned by the main narrative, including budget and costings, technical paperwork; partnership (where relevant), overall presentation, admin forms and presentation are correct and mirror the high quality of the narrative.
  • Collaborate effectively and constructively with other teams in RSS and outside RSS when the support of bids involved a cross-team effort.
  • Updating of the research grant management system (Worktribe), as well as keeping the Team database up to date
  • Particularly when Birmingham academics are involved as a collaborator, to ensure that our contribution meets the quality expected from the lead applicants and timeframes set by them.
  • To ensure that all internal and external procedures have been complied with.
  • Recording and reporting on interests, activities and results.


Group and Team activities

Take part in the cross group and team activities and in particular:
  • Updating and putting together new guidance documents
  • Contributing to the design and deliver of the research information and bid writing workshops.
  • Regular reports (oral and/or written) on dissemination funding strategy.
  • Monitoring of team generic mailboxes in a timely manner.
  • Bi-monthly topics discussion (pipeline activities) and funding intelligence updates.


Knowledge, Skills, Qualification and Experience

Multitasking and flexible individual who is able engage proactively with academic staff in order to encourage and motivate them to apply to funding opportunities, either directly or with through their foreign collaborators.

The post holder will be able to balance conflicting priorities, meet challenges and resolve difficulties, whilst pursuing needs and requirements and at the same time dealing with considerable quantities of data and information. An ability to respond to changing priorities as they arise is essential also with the ability to adapt to change and opportunities readily and in a timely manner.

In particular, the post-holder would have the following experience:
  • Postgraduate (PhD) or 4 year experience in research development.
  • Experience in research initiatives and public funding programmes including applications to these funders. Experience of EU and US funders is desirable (at application stage) but not essential as full training will be provided.
  • An experience in project management is desirable.
  • Experience of developing successful proposals for bilateral/multilateral collaborative research involving academic staff from different institutions.
  • Strong experience of facilitating research collaboration activities and follow-through agreed activities.
  • Strong knowledge of HE and academic drivers associated with excellence in research.
  • Knowledge of academic research motivation and imperatives in research and understanding of complex drivers for collaborative academic research.
  • Experience in gathering and circulating research-related information to the interested stakeholders.
  • Experience of research and/or office environments with a certain degree of responsibility and autonomy, and in working with project management tools and database, budgets (basic costings skills) and/or, personnel experience.


The post holder would also have the following attributes:
  • Highly organised individual who has the ability to manipulate a large amount of information.
  • Strong ability to grasp new concepts and knowledge quickly, and propose innovative solutions, as appropriate.
  • Excellent analytical and reasoning skills.
  • Ability to balance longer-term planning with need to react quickly to immediate problems/issues arising.
  • Excellent liaison skills at all levels, both inside and outside University environment.
  • Evidence of good management of own time, with short to long-term horizons.
  • Able to use own initiative to prioritise a varied workload in order to meet deadlines.
  • Able to analyse problems and summarise key points to other Corporate Services staff.
  • Ability to exercise own initiative on a fully reasoned basis and to react to and adapt to change as necessary.
  • Excellent communication skills: oral, written and presentational.
  • Experience of organising workshops and presenting in front of 30+ individuals and committees.
  • Proficient with IT tools and in particular MS Office.
  • Experience of designing and building website experience and using social media.


This post may require the post holder to work outside normal Office hours occasionally. Travel (UK and abroad) may occur.

Informal enquires to Eleonore Dispersyn, email: E.Dispersyn-Nievergelt@bham.ac.uk

We value diversity at The University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community.

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