Research Project Manager

The Context - Why We Need You

‘Reimagining Pathways into Environmental Science through Showcasing Technical Careers’ is a 29- month project at Durham University funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The project aims to empower young people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds into a technical career in environmental science. Part of the NERC ‘Opening up the Environment 2026’ work programme, the project seeks to lead and influence opportunities to enable a technical career. It collaborates with environmental science partners to develop opportunities for young people to consider a career in environmental science. It will evaluate and embed learnings from the project that will influence T Level policy and curriculum development. The project has workstreams around the promotion of technical careers, T Level placements, and policy and partnerships between regional Further Education colleges and environmental science industrial partners.

The Role and the Department

The RPM will manage the day-to-day administration of the project including project timeline, key deliverables, financial management (in liaison with the RIS post-award team) and meeting administration. The RPM will support the workstream leads in the organisation of key elements within each workstream, including collaborating with key internal and external stakeholders (including FE Colleges and students) to organise and establish T Level placement opportunities and meeting liaison with industry partners and collaborators. The RPM will lead on event organisation and marketing, and the communications and engagement plan. The PM will work alongside the project team to ensure the smooth running of the project and that risks are mitigated and managed. The RPM will also be involved in the project reporting phase enabling the dissemination of outputs, as well as the final close of the project.

We believe this role presents an excellent opportunity for candidates who would like to develop a career in research and innovation culture and project management. We welcome applications from individuals with strong transferable skills and experience from different careers and sectors, potentially in organisational change, research culture, further education development or project management. You may have worked in research administration for a number of years and be looking for another opportunity. You may have recently finished a PhD or postdoctoral role and wish to explore career paths beyond academia. You may work outside of HE but have experience of project management that has included working with a diverse team and internal and external stakeholders. We welcome applications from individuals who feel they meet the essential criteria below, regardless of background or experience.

Working arrangements: This role is full time (35 hours/week) but we will consider requests for flexible working arrangements including potential job shares. It is expected that this role will be predominantly face-to-face on campus, and the successful applicant will be prepared to locate to the northeast of England. There will be some scope for hybrid working arrangements in agreement with line manager, but this post will not be fully hybrid.

Further information about the role and the responsibilities is at the bottom of this job description.

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