Director, Institute for Sustainable Worlds

With a renowned reputation for teaching quality and student experience, the University was in the Top 10 for Teaching Quality in the 2022 Sunday Times Good University Guide and was named University of the Year for Student Retention by the influential Sunday Times Good Universities Guide for 2020. We are the highest climber in the Complete University Guide 2023 – the highest-ranked specialist creative arts university outside London. We have been awarded Gold in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) with the highest possible rating. We are the only creative arts and design university with a triple gold TEF rating. The University is characterised by its innovative and industry-engaged approach to creative education with an excellent reputation for student outcomes and employability.

The University is a vibrant community central to its city and region. Our campus is at the heart of Norwich’s creative quarter, comprising brand-new state of the art facilities and including the recently acquired iconic Bank Plain building. We celebrate diversity and believe it to be at the core of any creative endeavour. Whatever your background, identity and prior experience, wherever you are from, we want you to bring your whole self to work each day, in an environment that recognises your unique contribution.

The Institute will connect and apply experimental creative and design thinking to cutting edge biological, environmental and agricultural science developed in Norwich with the potential for global impact. Authentic to our city, it springs from the core idea that creative and design thinking can change the world for the better.

Defining the role of the creative civic university, the Institute will build on the competencies of our community at Norwich and of our closest regional knowledge base partners. It will develop a distinctive voice in the field of sustainability enquiry, building a model which can be replicated in arts/science/social science collaboration across the world.

The inaugural Director will lead the creation of the Institute’s character and work, based in our new Bank Plain development, ensuring the delivery of multi-partner research projects that generate research income and have significant cultural, societal and economic impact.

You will have significant experience of working in the creative sector, together with an understanding of the University’s aims and ambitions and their interconnectivity with the City of Norwich and the Eastern region.

Building on our interdisciplinary strengths, you will develop an Institute that makes a sustainable, ethical, and radical difference to Norwich and an increasingly complex world.

Bringing together a range of disciplines to develop and deliver new solutions to local challenges, you will build a model that can be replicated across the region, nationally and beyond. You will create an environment that attracts new thinkers to our community and engage a broad cross section of the academic community alongside external partners, government, industry, and civic society.

An ambitious and entrepreneurial research or project leader in an appropriate field, you will demonstrate a commitment to building innovative interdisciplinary teams, and have the vision and tenacity to create a transformative Institute. You will have the ambition and ability to turn local engagement into international impact.

Well networked, you will have proven relationship-building skills and a track record of securing research funding from relevant sources.

Candidates should apply for this role through our retained advisors Networked at: https://www.networkedpeople.com/norwichuni-sustainable-worlds/

Informal questions regarding the post should be directed to
Hamish Laing at Networked via  

hamish.laing@networkedpeople.com or +44 (0)7861 329463. 

Closing Date: Midnight on 8^th April 2024

Application packs and further details for the above post are available at: https://norwichuni.ac.uk/about-us/work-at-norwich/a991-1/