Senior Research Contracts Associate

About us:

We are looking for an experienced contracts professional to be an integral member of the Contracts Team, which provides a professional, effective and efficient service for King’s researchers by drafting, reviewing, negotiating and advising on contracts from private and public sector organisations for King’s research and consultancy activity. The Senior Research Contracts Associate will input into the Contracts Team’s contractual and costing processes, with an emphasis on the efficient contractual management of the workload for the newly awarded PharosAI platform. 

About the role:

We are looking for an experienced contracts professional to be an integral member of the Contracts Team, which provides a professional, effective and efficient service for King’s researchers by drafting, reviewing, negotiating and advising on contracts from private and public sector organisations for King’s research and consultancy activity. The Senior Research Contracts Associate will input into the Contracts Team’s contractual and costing processes, with an emphasis on the efficient contractual management of the workload for the newly awarded PharosAI platform.

The Senior Research Contracts Associate will be responsible for specific Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine (FoLSM) Schools within the Contracts Team remit and in particular, support the contractual delivery of PharosAI, a joint venture between King’s College London, Queen Mary University of London, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and Barts Health NHS Trust, to accelerate science through access to expertly curated, longitudinal, multimodal cancer datasets and AI models for researchers in industry and academic institutions.  The data and the development of AI within the platform, in partnership with clinical, academic and industry partners, will require an experienced contracts professional to lead on a large workload of related agreements.

Candidates should have experience of negotiating legal agreements, preferably in a university environment, policy development expertise and be confident and persuasive negotiators with a track record of successful negotiation with different stakeholders. Experience of costing and pricing project budgets is desirable. Applicants also require excellent organisational and communication and literacy skills, proven decision-making ability and be able to work well under pressure, both individually and as part of a team.

This is a full-time (35 Hours per week) role on fixed-term contract until 31^st March 2027.

There is possibility of extension subject to funding.

About you:

Essential criteria

1. Degree or equivalent professional qualification
2. Proven track record of negotiation of research related contracts and agreements, including negotiation of intellectual property, liability/indemnity and price
3. Proven negotiation/influencing skills in relation to external funders and partners and ability to analyse and problem solve complex contractual issues
4. Proven track record of engaging with internal and external partners
5. Ability to manage a large and diverse turnover of bids and contracts and excellent organisation skills (managing team workload and remit, multiple competing priorities)
6. Excellent oral and written communication skills, with the ability to explain complex ideas with clarity and liaise effectively with a wide range of stakeholders of varying seniority
7. Sound numeracy/IT skills and knowledge of university research funding environment and full economic costing (TRAC fEC)
8. Self-starting, a completer/finisher and able to work largely unsupervised

Desirable criteria

1. Knowledge of full economic costing methodology
2. Broad research funding administration experience in the university sector, or other relevant institutions (e.g. the public sector)
3. Knowledge of regulations for research facilities
4. Working knowledge of the university research funding environment, including experience and familiarity with key funders’ terms & conditions

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