Senior Strategy Manager

Location: Polaris House, Swindon, Wiltshire

Proposed Interview Dates: W/C 24 April 2023

About the role

We are recruiting for a Senior Strategy Manager to play a key role in the Strategy Team at the heart of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the UK’s largest funder of economic, social and behavioural research, and human data science. This is an exciting opportunity to work in an important area to catalyse and coordinate ESRC’s priorities and future planning.

The Strategy Team works across ESRC to deliver high-level coordination of strategic planning, providing direction and focus to ESRC’s staff and partners. This includes leading the process of generating new ideas and insights to inform the future strategic direction. This role will engage with partners and our research and innovation community, and support the use of consistent messaging in our communications. The team plays a key role in supporting ESRC in decision making to ensure achievement the 2022-25 Delivery Plan.

Key responsibilities

• Develop, coordinate and champion strategic initiatives, plans and priorities, including ESRC’s Strategic Delivery Plan
• Lead coordination and delivery of ESRC's engagement with UK Research Organisations and the wider social science research community
• Engage with key partners such as Learned Societies, ESRC boards and advisory committees to aid development and implementation of our strategy and to identify shared priorities and opportunities
• Develop and champion best practice in strategic thinking, horizon scanning, strategic planning and monitoring
• Build positive relationships across UKRI and ESRC, and with ESRC’s advisory bodies, to facilitate collaboration
• Play an influential role in the Strategy Team, and across ESRC and UKRI as needed, including presenting key papers for Council, SLT and Strategic Advisory Network meetings
• Deliver cross-ESRC projects embedding strategic considerations in the delivery of ESRC initiatives, including ESRC large investments and institutes
• Support the pipeline of new ideas, capturing and developing insights from the social science community and beyond

Person requirements

• A degree or equivalent relevant experience
• Strategic thinking, including the ability to see and communicate the bigger picture
• Planning and coordination skills, to translate priorities into clear objectives and to engage teams to plan and set priorities
• Analytical skills, particularly an ability to capture and distil intelligence and information to produce insights
• Judgement to handle complex and sensitive issues and make effective decisions
• Able to deal effectively and innovatively with challenging situations, and to structure and solve problems with initiative, creativity and diplomacy
• Tolerance of ambiguity and uncertainty and adaptable to change
• Excellent communication skills, able to provide quality written and verbal advice for executive and senior level decision makers
• Well-developed influencing and interpersonal skills; experience of creating and maintaining positive relationships with a range of partners

In return, UKRI can offer the successful candidate:

- Flexible Working

- 30 days annual leave + Public Holidays

- Access to Civil Service Pension Scheme

- Various everyday discounts through our dedicated provider

For more information and to apply, please visit our Careers Pages.

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