Research officer jobs in London

The Research Grants Officer’s role is to support the Research team to ensure that The Charity effectively delivers our Research Strategy: Accelerating a Cure and our grant programme.

You will assist with all aspects of our pre and post award management processes for all of our current and future funding schemes.

WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR:

With an enthusiasm and passion for the work of The Brain Tumour Charity you will have a life science background, a strong understanding of medical research and its funding. You will be highly organised, with excellent communication skills (written, verbal and interpersonal), a keen eye for details and enjoy working in a fast-paced team.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES:

· Work with and assist the Research Team in the implementation of The Charity’s strategic goals and research strategy.

· Undertake research related projects to further the aims of The Charity to transform the research landscape to support people in living longer, better lives following a brain tumour diagnosis.

· Support the administration of The Charity’s grant application, monitoring and review processes, including liaising with academic researchers and assessment panels.

· Support the peer reviewing of submitted proposals by identifying expert reviewers for those areas, and ensuring reviews and scores are completed within strict deadlines.

· Organise and attend panel meetings including liaising with attendees and venues, preparing and distributing panel packs, and taking minutes and producing summaries where necessary.

· Monitor the progress of current grants through review of annual reports as well as regular engagement with The Charity’s funded researchers outside of reporting timelines.

· Detailed financial monitoring of awarded grants and maintain accurate records of expenditure.

· Maintain accurate electronic records to track grant applications and awarded grants.

· Respond to enquiries about The Charity’s funded research, research strategy and calls for applications from researchers, the public and colleagues within The Charity.

· Assist in ensuring the scientific accuracy of internal and external communications around the research programme, for example in feedback letters, mail outs, newsletters, website content and press releases.

This role sits within the well-established Saving Babies’ Lives Team, and this role is part of Sands’ drive to improve maternity and neonatal safety so that babies’ lives are saved, and inequalities are reduced.

Sands’ work to save babies lives focuses on the following objectives:

• Maternity and neonatal care is continually improved using research and evidence (including the experiences and perspectives of bereaved parents) to inform policy and practice

• All hospitals in the UK offer safe and personalised maternity and neonatal care

• Inequalities in outcome in maternity and neonatal care are eliminated

• Maternity and neonatal services have a culture which embraces and supports learning and improvement

Our aim is to save babies lives, with the UK matching the best-performing countries in Europe in reducing baby deaths, and within this to eliminate inequalities in these outcomes based on ethnicity and deprivation.

The Research Officer will have experience of working with researchers, supporting the development of studies and identifying gaps in evidence, innovation and guidance. Excellent organisation, communication and relationship building skills are key for this role.

Our client, The Centre for Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education (TASO) is an affiliate What Works Centre, and part of the UK Government’s What Works Movement. Their vision is to eliminate equality gaps in higher education (HE). Their mission is to improve lives through evidence-informed practice.

​TASO was set up in 2019 and became an independent charity in April 2021. Their work focuses on the generation, synthesis and dissemination of high-quality evidence about effective practice in widening participation and student outcomes. They primarily focus on developing and disseminating causal evidence.

​Role:

​The Chief Research Officer will ensure the smooth and successful delivery of TASO’s Research & Evaluation programme, with overall responsibility for TASO’s Research and Evaluation budget. This will involve managing the staff involved in these functions to deliver TASO’s research, evaluation, synthesis and evidence mobilisation activities to time and within budget.
 
Working closely with the Chief Executive, the postholder will help shape TASO’s overall strategic direction and translate this into a clear programme of research and evaluation activity. They will lead and manage the teams responsible for research and evaluation to ensure that TASO’s strategies are delivered effectively on time and within budget.
 
The role includes overseeing the delivery of TASO’s research programmes, ensuring compliance, managing research funding rounds, and maintaining strong oversight of subcontracted work. The Chief Research Officer will also oversee the development and implementation of TASO’s evaluation strategy, including the commissioning and monitoring of evaluations and the effective functioning of governance mechanisms such as the Research Sub-committee and Evaluation Advisory Panel.
 
Working with the Chief Executive and Head of Communications, they will ensure a strategic approach to communications, dissemination and stakeholder engagement, strengthening awareness and uptake of TASO’s work across the sector. The postholder will champion the quality, accuracy and transparency of TASO publications and act as a credible and respected voice for robust service research and evaluation.

Key objectives:

• Act as overall in-house lead on all TASO research and evaluation activities, upholding methodological standards to ensure the production of high-quality casual evidence
• Plan and oversee TASO’s research and evaluation programmes, including ensuring adherence to all relevant procurement, legal and ethical requirements, delivery of research funding rounds and effective management of research and evaluation partners
• Take overall responsibility for the TASO research and evaluation budget, including budget allocation, forecasting, monitoring and reporting
• Lead resourcing and budgetary planning and reporting for the research and evaluation team
• Oversee the quality, accuracy and transparency of TASO research and evaluation publications
• Oversee the running of the Research and Evaluation subcommittee of the TASO Board to ensure effective scrutiny of the Research and Evaluation programme and a clear line of support for the Board to understand our work
• Act as ambassador and leader of TASO, speaking at external events about the TASO Research and Evaluation programme
• Provide line management for team members, with overall leadership for a team of seven
• Work with the Chief Executive to develop and monitor TASO’s overall strategic direction, and to translate this strategic direction into the effective operations and activities of the organisation
• Lead on work to mobilise Research and Evaluation outputs (e.g. through events, publications and stakeholder engagement) via effective liaison with the Communications team.

​Candidate:​

Education/qualification and training
Essential

• Undergraduate degree in relevant discipline PhD or Masters level qualification with evidence of applied research

Knowledge/skills
Essential

• Overseeing and managing research projects, including scoping, planning, delivering and reporting, and quality-assurance
• Confident and clear written and verbal communication, and the ability to review and edit others’ work in line with organisational style
• Considering and synthesising complex information into formats that are useful to a wide range of stakeholders, including senior managers, practitioners and the lay public.

Desirable

• Budget planning and monitoring
• Coordinating and influencing diverse stakeholders to deliver strategic. priorities, including building positive relationships and convening forums where stakeholders can be briefed and issues surfaced.
• Understanding of widening participation and/or student success agendas.

Experience
Essential

• Designing and implementing rigorous quantitative impact evaluations, including randomised controlled trials, difference in differences, regression discontinuity, and propensity score matching, particularly applied to policymaking
• Applying academic research to real-world problems
• Line and project management of staff with a range of development needs, including developmental coaching and performance management
• Managing multiple projects and competing demands.

Desirable

• Commissioning and overseeing external research providers
• Developing and delivering capability-building presentations and workshops for professional audiences.

Personal characteristics/other requirements
Essential

• Committed to evidence-led decision-making
• Determined, resilient and optimistic approach to work
• Able to advocate for robust evaluation and build enthusiasm and capacity in non-expert collaborators. ​​

Apply:
​
Please review the Job Pack for full details.

​To apply, please send of a copy of your CV together with a separate personal statement (maximum 2 sides of A4) outlining why you’re interested in the role and how you meet the person specification, to Tim Hamilton-West at Whiton Maynard, via the link below. 

Please note that you must already have the right to work in UK to apply for this role.
 
Closing date: Monday 13 April (1pm)

​As specialist recruiters we are committed to building inclusive and diverse organisations, and welcome applications from all sections of the community.​

Senior Research Officer

Bowel Cancer UK is the UK’s leading bowel cancer charity. We’re determined to save lives and improve the quality of life of everyone affected by bowel cancer. We support and fund targeted research, provide expert information and support to patients and their families, educate the public and professionals about the disease and campaign for early diagnosis and access to best treatment and care.

We currently have employees working across four nations in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Thanks to the generosity of our community, we’re in a privileged position to be able to deliver our ambitious new strategy, On a Mission. There are huge challenges facing bowel cancer patients across the UK and our community needs us now more than ever. We’re building a strong and united team to bring us closer to a world where nobody dies of bowel cancer.
 

Job Summary - Senior Research Officer

We are seeking a confident and organised Senior Research Officer to join our small but ambitious Research Team. This is a hands-on role with real scope to contribute to how we fund and manage research, and to make a genuine difference to a programme that's helping to save lives.
 

The Senior Research Officer will lead the delivery of our grant funding processes from end to end - managing application rounds, overseeing the active portfolio, coordinating our scientific committees, supporting our research events and leading our approach to patient and public involvement in research. Working in a small, specialist team means you'll also have real scope to contribute ideas, help improve how we do things, and play a meaningful part in the development of the research programme beyond the day-to-day.

Interviews will be held on Thursday 16 April.

If you have a track record in grants administration, bring experience, confidence and good judgement, and are genuinely committed to making research funding work well, we want to hear from you.

 

Safeguarding

Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and at Bowel Cancer UK we are committed to safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable adults and we expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Successful candidates may be subject to either a satisfactory basic, standard or enhanced DBS check from the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) dependent upon the role.

About the role
At The Brilliant Club, we mobilise the PhD community to support students from less advantaged backgrounds to access the most competitive universities and succeed when they get there. We work with students who, because of their family income, parental history or the postcode they live in, are at risk of missing out on the life-changing opportunities linked to higher education.

We are delighted to be hiring a Senior Research and Evaluation Officer to join The Brilliant Club. This pivotal role will support the charity’s research and evaluation consultancy work through Brilliant Consulting. Through our consultancy work, we have partnered with a range of universities and education organisations, such as the Centre for Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education (TASO) and The Sutton Trust. The Senior Research and Evaluation Officer will contribute to improving the evidence base for what works to drive fairer education outcomes and social mobility. They will do this by supporting mission-aligned organisations to conduct robust evaluations of outreach and education programmes.

The Senior Research and Evaluation Officer will join a small consultancy team and will be managed by the charity’s Director of Research and Impact. The team is also supported by several colleagues from across the organisation who work on specific projects based on their areas of expertise. The consultancy team is part of the charity’s wider research and impact team, who collectively have two areas of responsibility: evaluating and reporting the impact of the charity’s programmes and providing research and evaluation consultancy and strategy support to education organisations.

The successful candidate will have strong research skills, including in quantitative research, and will be able to communicate technical information and findings to university access and success practitioners and educators. They will also demonstrate professional skills in relation to stakeholder management and project management and will champion the charity’s values and embody them in interactions with colleagues and partners. While this role can be based at any of our offices throughout the UK, some travel will be required (mainly to London) to attend in-person meetings.

About you
The role will best suit someone who

• Has a degree in a subject involving applied research (e.g., economics, education, policy, psychology, sociology, statistics).
• Has quantitative research skills, ideally with experience of constructing comparison groups and running statistical models to understand impact.
• Has experience of mixed methods approaches, including qualitative research methods (e.g., focus groups and interviews).
• Aas knowledge of the UK education landscape, including higher education.
• An organised and methodical approach, with excellent attention to detail and ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Has excellent written and verbal communication skills, including being able to communicate with a range of external stakeholders.
• Will adhere to information security policies included in the charity’s ISO 27001 manual and complete information security training.
• Has a demonstrable passion for furthering The Brilliant Club’s mission