Research Officer

Are you an organised individual with experience in a process driven, administrative or project delivery environment, who is looking to develop your skills at the nation's largest funder of health and care research.

At the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) we enable world-class research that transforms people’s lives, promotes economic growth and advances science. We need a motivated individual to become a Research Officer and join our busy Operations Team at the NIHR Central Commissioning Facility (CCF) in Twickenham (hosted by LGC Ltd). This role involves a mixture of working in the Twickenham office (at least 6 days per month) and working from home.

**Key responsibilities**

We are looking for someone who can:
1. Deliver the work involved in running research funding schemes in collaboration with NIHR CCF colleagues and external parties, including:

- Supporting the project management of individual funding competitions (to commission new research) from start to finish, including chairing progress meetings, using an in-house tool to track progress and keeping stakeholders updated
- Acting as a key contact point for enquiries about funding schemes
- Communicating with applicants, independent expert reviewers and funding committee meeting attendees
- Preparing competition information for publication on the NIHR website
- Working with the Information Services team to configure, test and troubleshoot each new competition on the research management system (RMS)
- Checking the eligibility of research proposals received, and that they are not duplicating existing NIHR-funded research
- Sourcing and inviting large numbers of independent expert reviewers to undertake peer review of research funding proposals, and ensuring their input is received within deadlines
- Managing applicant responses to reviewer comments
- Producing funding committee meeting papers and related documents
- Supporting committee meetings on the day including simple Zoom troubleshooting advice for virtual meetings, overseeing venue arrangements such as room set-up at face-to-face meetings, liaising with attendees, running presentation slides, managing conflicts of interest of attendees and taking notes
- Providing practice Zoom sessions for some attendees
- Preparing and dispatching outcome letters to applicants, carrying out other post-committee meeting tasks and managing follow-up queries from applicants

2. Support monitoring and management of awards made including:

- Populating contract templates for new awards and overseeing the electronic signing process
- Collecting progress reports from award holders

4. Support annual award data collection exercises, that enable the NIHR to understand and demonstrate the impact of the research it has funded

5. Regularly interact with a range of people at all levels of seniority, including NIHR colleagues, Department of Health and Social Care staff, committee members and the research community.

6. Operate as a flexible resource within NIHR CCF, e.g. providing support to projects and performing data analysis

7. Occasionally travel to attend face-to-face committee meetings.

**Behaviours and Competencies Required**
- Able to gather information systematically from multiple sources
- Excellent attention to detail and meticulous record keeping when managing large amounts of information
- Able to manage time effectively including managing competing demands, prioritising tasks, adapting flexibly to changes and meeting all deadlines. Research Officers are often involved in at least 2-3 competitions running at any time, with overlapping and conflicting timescales
- Able to act on initiative, identify opportunities and be proactive in putting forward ideas and solutions
- A determination to get things done, make things happen and constantly looking for better ways of doing things
- A willingness and enthusiasm to learn new systems and processes
- Excellent team working, i.e. able to work confidently and effectively in a group
- Excellent verbal communication, i.e. able to express ideas clearly and confidently in speech, and vary delivery to match the specific audiences
- Excellent written communication, i.e. able to express yourself and information clearly and concisely in writing.
- An interest in advancing health care and/or a health science background

**Benefits**

**Experience**
Track record of working within an administrativ...
Relevant experience in a process-driven field
1 years
1 years
1 years

**Qualifications**
- Educated to a minimum of A Level standard
- Good administration and computing skills i.e. competent using Microsoft Office and/or Google packages (gmail, Sheets, Docs, Calendar etc)