Job summary
The Royal Marsden Hospital is seeking an experienced Research Collaboration Operations Manager to play a pivotal role in shaping, supporting and expanding our BRC research portfolio. This is a senior programme management role that will provide operational and portfolio oversight across eight BRC themes, while actively enabling collaboration between NHS clinicians, academic researchers, funders and industry partners. The post holder will also lead and support the pre-award development of strategically important and complex research funding applications, helping ideas move from concept to funded reality. This role is embedded within the NIHR BRC infrastructure and plays a critical role in shaping the Centre's future competitiveness.
The post holder will be a confident and proactive senior programme manager with extensive experience of programme management and stakeholder engagement. The ideal candidate will be comfortable operating at pace across a complex research environment, working beyond organisational boundaries, and influencing senior stakeholders. They will be proactive and highly organised, with a strong reasoning and analytical skills, administrative experience and an excellent attention to detail.
This position is full-time, fixed term until 31st March 2028 with possibility of extension This is a hybrid role with a combination of on-site (3 days/week) and home working (2 days/week).
Main duties of the job
The NIHR's 20 BRCs are collaborations between world leading universities and NHS organisations that bring together academics and clinicians to translate lab-based scientific breakthroughs into potential new treatments, diagnostics and medical technologies. The RM/ICR BRC has eight research themes:
- Early Diagnosis, Detection and Stratified Prevention
- Precision Diagnostics and Cancer Evolution
- Advanced Technologies for Cure
- Early Phase Drug Development
- Precision Therapeutics
- Immunotherapeutics
- Cancer Treatment Effects
- Imaging and Data Science
About us
The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust is a world-leading cancer centre. Our role is to offer our patients the best cancer care available anywhere in the world, and to continue to make a global contribution to finding better ways of diagnosing and treating cancer. We employ over 4,500 staff in a diverse range of careers including nursing, medical, science, radiography, pharmacy, occupational therapy, finance and administrative services. We have two hospitals - one in Chelsea, London, and one in Sutton, Surrey - as well as a Medical Daycare Unit in Kingston Hospital.
At The Royal Marsden, we deal with cancer every day, so we understand how valuable life is. When people entrust their lives to us, they have the right to demand the very best. That's why the pursuit of excellence lies at the heart of everything we do.
At the heart of the hospital is our dedicated team. We offer a stimulating and dynamic working environment, a wide range of staff benefits, learning and development opportunities and clear career pathways. There are opportunities to work flexibly across a range of areas and specialities and we welcome flexible working requests from point of hire to support employees work life balance. We are looking for employees who aspire to excellence, share our values and can play a crucial role in our on-going achievements.
Job description
Job responsibilities
For further information on this role, please see the attached detailed Job Description and Person Specification.
- Develop and maintain a strategic overview of research capabilities, performance, risks and collaborative potential across the eight BRC themes to inform BRC leadership decision-making and future BRC competition planning.
- Support the Theme Leads in delivering the aims and objectives of the themes, managing the annual work plan, engaging with theme members on a regular basis to capture new activity and monitor progress of existing activity and proactively identifying opportunities for cross-theme working and portfolio growth.
- Identify gaps in the research portfolio, emerging strategic priorities and under-represented areas, and support developing studies to fill these gaps.
- Identify and understand areas of poor performance, delivery risk or misalignment with BRC objectives, and support the Theme Leads and Clinical Unit Research Leads to take relevant steps to improve these.
- Be the primary point of contact for all BRC themes-related activities, including coordination of the internal BRC pump-priming awards call from priority setting through to monitoring downstream impact and progression to external funding.
Job description
Job responsibilities
For further information on this role, please see the attached detailed Job Description and Person Specification.
- Develop and maintain a strategic overview of research capabilities, performance, risks and collaborative potential across the eight BRC themes to inform BRC leadership decision-making and future BRC competition planning.
- Support the Theme Leads in delivering the aims and objectives of the themes, managing the annual work plan, engaging with theme members on a regular basis to capture new activity and monitor progress of existing activity and proactively identifying opportunities for cross-theme working and portfolio growth.
- Identify gaps in the research portfolio, emerging strategic priorities and under-represented areas, and support developing studies to fill these gaps.
- Identify and understand areas of poor performance, delivery risk or misalignment with BRC objectives, and support the Theme Leads and Clinical Unit Research Leads to take relevant steps to improve these.
- Be the primary point of contact for all BRC themes-related activities, including coordination of the internal BRC pump-priming awards call from priority setting through to monitoring downstream impact and progression to external funding.
Person Specification
Education/Qualifications
Essential
- Postgraduate qualification in biomedical/life sciences or an allied subject or equivalent experience
- Project or programme management qualification/accreditation (eg PRINCE 2 or MSP) or equivalent experience such as managing NHS based clinical/health research projects/programmes
Desirable
- Evidence of Continuing Professional Development
Experience
Essential
- First-hand experience in building successful relationships between NHS Trusts, universities and industry collaborators.
- Significant experience in operational leadership, including committee governance and reporting to stakeholders.
- Significant experience of project managing research projects involving multiple organisations within a healthcare setting or making significant contributions to research funding applications with the aim of developing/translating technologies into patient benefit.
Desirable
- Previous experience of working with the NIHR.
- Experience of devising and/or managing complex budgets working within the AcoRD framework.
Skills/Abilities/Knowledge
Essential
- High-level organisational approach to manage relationships, resource allocation and risks.
- Excellent interpersonal skills and an ability to effectively network and build relationships with people from a diverse range of experience, seniority. With an ability to work beyond organisational boundaries.
- Proactive problem-solving skills, with an ability to autonomously and/or collaboratively drive mitigation/resolution.
- An understanding of research funder missions, remits and schemes, UK health and clinical research infrastructure and how they add value through research.
Desirable
- An understanding and value of the UK standards for patient and public involvement in health research.
- An understanding of the importance of identifying and mitigating health inequalities through research design.
Person Specification
Education/Qualifications
Essential
- Postgraduate qualification in biomedical/life sciences or an allied subject or equivalent experience
- Project or programme management qualification/accreditation (eg PRINCE 2 or MSP) or equivalent experience such as managing NHS based clinical/health research projects/programmes
Desirable
- Evidence of Continuing Professional Development
Experience
Essential
- First-hand experience in building successful relationships between NHS Trusts, universities and industry collaborators.
- Significant experience in operational leadership, including committee governance and reporting to stakeholders.
- Significant experience of project managing research projects involving multiple organisations within a healthcare setting or making significant contributions to research funding applications with the aim of developing/translating technologies into patient benefit.
Desirable
- Previous experience of working with the NIHR.
- Experience of devising and/or managing complex budgets working within the AcoRD framework.
Skills/Abilities/Knowledge
Essential
- High-level organisational approach to manage relationships, resource allocation and risks.
- Excellent interpersonal skills and an ability to effectively network and build relationships with people from a diverse range of experience, seniority. With an ability to work beyond organisational boundaries.
- Proactive problem-solving skills, with an ability to autonomously and/or collaboratively drive mitigation/resolution.
- An understanding of research funder missions, remits and schemes, UK health and clinical research infrastructure and how they add value through research.
Desirable
- An understanding and value of the UK standards for patient and public involvement in health research.
- An understanding of the importance of identifying and mitigating health inequalities through research design.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
