Digital Asset Office Manager

Location: Daresbury Laboratory- Warrington

Contract Type: Open-Ended

Hours: Full Time (We understand the importance of work-life balance, and are happy to discuss the possibility of flexible working with applicants)

*This role is eligible for up to £3,000 Responsibility and Retention Allowance gross per annum

About the Hartree Centre

Backed by over £170 million of government funding and strategic partnerships with organisations such as IBM and Atos, the STFC Hartree Centre is home to some of the most advanced computing, data and AI technologies in the UK.

At the Hartree Centre, we want to see UK businesses outperforming their global competitors. We want to grow the economy, create skilled jobs and train people to excel in them. Most of all, we want to keep the UK at the forefront of industrial and digital innovation. We're making all this happen and more by enabling UK industry to fully embrace and integrate the latest digital and cognitive technologies.

We provide collaborative research, innovation and development services that accelerate the application of high-performance computing (HPC), data analytics and artificial intelligence technologies. By working with us, businesses and research partners can gain a competitive advantage that enable them to produce better outcomes, products and services than through conventional R&D.

Come and discover how much you can achieve when you’re surrounded by world-leading experts, encouraged to constantly learn and empowered to explore your curiosity.

About the Role

Could you use your flair for undertaking business focussed due diligence to help the Hartree Centre turn our research and ideas into industry-ready solutions that lower the barriers to innovation? Do you pride yourself on having an excellent understanding of how to build mutually beneficial relationships whilst protecting intellectual property rights and the origins of our digital assets? Would you like to work in an environment where you can help UK businesses and organisations of any size to explore and adopt cutting edge technologies to enhance productivity, accelerate innovation and drive economic growth?

We are looking for an ideally energetic, self-directed and articulate individual to join the Hartree Centre to manage and lead its Digital Asset Office. Reporting directly to our Associate Director of Operations, and working alongside internal and external partners, you will be accountable for ensuring the Hartree Centre’s digital assets are professionally managed and exploitable over the long term.

The Digital Asset Office Manager will primarily be accountable for leading our Excelerate workstream, a key part of the Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation (HNCDI). HNCDI is a £210m program of government funding which brings together world leading expertise in digital technologies from the Hartree Centre (STFC) and IBM to support the application of cutting-edge technologies into organisations across the UK. The Excelerate workstream is where HNCDI embeds new technologies such as AI, data science and quantum solutions into organizations to solve their business challenges. As the Excelerate workstream lead, you will help us turn challenge-led research and ideas into industry-ready solutions that address specific business challenges, lower the barriers to innovation, and enable organisations to create enhanced products and services.

Collaborating closely with teams across UKRI and STFC, under the wider Digital Asset Office remit, you will also help support our science, technology teams to understand, manage and exploit our digital asset portfolio. Working with our colleagues across UKRI and STFC Business Innovation and Development teams you will become the lead for all Intellectual property, patent, licensing and exploitation matters across the Centre. You will work closely with IP, Legal, Commercial and Innovation teams across organisations to help us to manage and understand our assets and to and exploit the related intellectual property and licensing positions on behalf of the Centre successfully.

Responsibilities of the role include:

• Lead the HNCDI Excelerate work stream and ensure successful delivery of the required volume and quality of challenge-led projects that aim to keep the UK at the forefront of industrial innovation.
• Work closely with our HNCDI IBM partners to deliver the Excelerate workstreams KPIs. You will be expected to report on progress to the HNCDI programme management office and represent the workstream at the appropriate governance boards
• Manage product and service life cycles, be able to manage internal and external client expectations
• Attend meetings with clients and stakeholders and be able to communicate effectively
• Identify requirements for project delivery and help review and construct detailed and workable project plans, working with the centre’s PMO office to identify dependencies and critical paths whilst ensuring adherence to agreed delivery dates and resource profiles.
• With support from STFC and UKRI Business Innovation and Legal departments, develop exploitation plans for our digital assets, supporting and monitoring the delivery within agreed timescales and helping our science and technology teams to understand, protect and exploit their digital assets.
• Develop and embed digital asset management processes and procedures across the centre, following best practices, techniques, and tools for digital asset management whilst tailoring the tools and methodology appropriate to the situation.
• Ensure that problem resolution is handled swiftly and escalated when a decision is required at a more senior level or by another business area

Person Specification

(Please note the below criteria will be assessed at Shortlisting and/or Interview stage)

Essential

• Current or previous experience of working within a digital asset office or innovation environment or able to demonstrate an understanding of the skills needed to work in a research and development environment, preferably in a computing or technology field
• Excellent customer-facing skills and an aptitude for exploring use-cases & capturing user requirements alongside proven skills in commercial negotiations and agreements
• Possesses excellent analytical skills, with the ability to apply data in providing solutions and driving strategic business decisions
• Demonstrated leadership skills, with the ability to build and lead a team with strong interpersonal skills and a proven ability to influence colleagues and collaborators from a wide range of backgrounds and subject areas towards achievement of agreed deliverables
• Well organized and highly structured individual, with ability to give attention to detail and resolve complex multifaceted issues
• Good understanding of UK intellectual property, licensing, non-disclosure agreements, invention disclosures, competition law and state aid and how this affects public sector research organizations. Ability to interpret complex legal and IP advice/documents and provide clear risk-based advice to managers.
• Demonstrates a proactive attitude to problem solving, handling risks, and escalating issues that arise where appropriate
• Able to absorb technical and legal information and communicate effectively to both specialist and non-specialist audiences of varying seniority

Here at STFC, we ask some of the biggest questions in the universe, to answer some of the biggest challenges in the world. Whatever our role within the organisation, we have the freedom to explore, learn and connect, as part of a community that loves to share knowledge and support one another.

As one of Europe’s largest research organisations, this is a place where there’s always something new to learn –about the world around us, about your career, but most of all, about yourself. Join us and discover what’s possible.

Choosing to come to work at STFC means that you will have access to a whole host of benefits including a flexible working scheme, a Career Average Revalued Earnings pension scheme, 30 days annual leave allowance, access to employee shopping/travel discounts and salary sacrifice cycle to work scheme.

The closing date for applications 11th December 2022.