Head of Digital Research Systems

**Details**:
**Reference number**:

- 389679

**Salary**:

- £68,503
- National = £68503
London = £72602
- A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

**Job grade**:

- Grade 6

**Contract type**:

- Fixed term
Loan
Secondment

**Length of employment**:

- 2 years

**Business area**:

- DHSC - Chief Scientific Advisor Group - Science, Research & Evidence Directorate

**Type of role**:

- Communications / Marketing
Digital

**Working pattern**:

- Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time

**Number of jobs available**:

- 1

Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- Leeds, London

About the job

**Job summary**:
In the Department of Health and Social Care, we are proud of our purpose - to enable everyone to live more independent, healthier lives for longer. To achieve this, and create a great place to work, we have four values: we are inclusive, we constantly improve, we challenge, and we are agile. If this sounds like an environment you would like to work in, we would love to hear from you.

**Job description**:
The postholder will play a pivotal leading role in driving digital transformation across the national health and care research system.

Through its research operational arm (the National Institute for Health and Care Research - NIHR), DHSC is implementing a new digital change programme to make the UK the best place in the world to deliver research that saves and improves lives. If you are a high performing, energetic digital professional, with expertise in both digital strategy and delivery, who wants to lead our bold, new programme of work to transform health and care research through digital, then we want to hear from you.

The post is based in the Science, Research & Evidence Directorate of DHSC, which oversees the NIHR. The postholder will shape and oversee delivery, through the NIHR, of a range of transformational digital projects which will fundamentally change and improve how the NIHR funds, delivers and communicates the outcomes of health and care research. Their work will ultimately mean that we can get life-improving research to the people who need it faster and more effectively.

The postholder will lead a core DHSC team (two digital specialists and one communications specialist) and sponsor and oversee the work of a wider, growing cross-organisational cohort of over a hundred digital and communications professionals throughout the NIHR who are delivering programmes of work to support research on the ground, across the country.

In 2025 and beyond, the digital research programme includes key projects which will:

- Create a new world-leading information system which will provide Government with a real-time overview of the delivery status of thousands of clinical research studies taking place across the entirety of the NHS. This is called the ‘Research Delivery Data Intelligence’ system.
- Improve the capability and functionality of the ‘Be Part of Research’ and ‘Join Dementia Research’ systems, which enable patients and the public to participate in research studies that can help change and improve their lives.
- Build-up a single hub of digital expertise in the NHS Business Services Authority, under the direction of the NIHR Chief Digital Officer (CDO) which will support the work of the NIHR and the wider health and care system.
- Ensure that the NIHR has robust cyber-security systems in place to protect the functioning of the health and care research system nationally.

The postholder will also play a leading role in joining up and finding synergies with digital and data functions across the Department, including with the DHSC Chief Data Officer and the joint Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England Digital Policy Unit. The postholder will contribute to cross-Departmental working to improve the use of data and digital in the policy-making process and in advice to Ministers.

On Communications, the postholder will work closely with the DHSC Science, Research and Evidence Director and the new NIHR Director of Communications to deliver a step-change in how we can better communicate the ‘health and wealth’ benefits of the £1.6bn annual budget that the NIHR spends on research. The postholder will also work on the full public launch of the ‘Be Part of Research’ research participation service, which will boost the number and diversity of people signing up to the service; this is a really important part of delivering against Ministerial ambitions to make the UK the best place in the world for clinical trials.

The role is being offered for two years in the first instance, recognising that this is the time horizon for the change programmes across digital and communications that the postholder will be leading.

**Person specification**:
**Responsibilities of the role -**The postholder will:

- Be the key DHSC liaison with health and care professionals, researchers, other research funders and the life science