King's College London

About us

The Health Research Development team supports research income generation activity across the four health faculties at King’s. Our team focusses on helping faculties deliver King’s health research priorities. Our work is enormously varied and ranges from supporting the implementation of major organisational strategic priorities, to supporting individuals seeking their first research grant. 

We help group leaders, departments, schools and faculties develop their plans for grant acquisition, provide insight into funder priorities and processes, and support the development of grant proposals from concept, to drafting, to interview preparation. We also run a variety of internal funding streams and selection processes to manage funder application caps.  

About the role

This role is one of two posts supporting the Faculty of Life Science and Medicine, and also supports the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral and Craniofacial Sciences. You will work closely with academic staff to understand their research funding goals, encouraging and supporting applications to appropriate opportunities, from concept to award offer and managing internal selection processes. Using your professional services and academic networks you will work with colleagues across the University to maximise opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration. Working with the research development team, you will deliver training activities for academic staff that increase awareness of research funding streams and capability to apply.

This is a role where we value you scientific curiosity and ability to put the goals of our scientists in context, making connections across our wider research community and helping align opportunities to the priorities of funders. To thrive in this role you’ll bring a strong grounding in a relevant field of research with a good understanding or how health research funding works and experience of working in a research funding environment. You will be solution focussed, with an organised and adaptable approach and be able to quickly understand complex concepts. And you will bring the motivation and personal qualities to engage with senior academic staff and professional service colleagues to understand their goals and challenges and help address them. In return we offer an unbeatable learning environment, with opportunities to develop your career in a collaborative and highly valued team.

This is a full time post (35 hours per week) offering an indefinite contract, but there may be some scope for reduced hours on enquiry. 

The role requires a blend of working closely with scientific staff in person and across our campuses, alongside opportunities for remote working.

For an informal conversation, please contact Alasdair Rankin, Director of Research Development (Health) alasdair.rankin@kcl.ac.uk 

About you

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria 

1.      Graduate degree or equivalent experience in a subject relevant to health sciences. 

2.      Significant relevant experience of working in an academic research or research funding environment, with deep understanding of the health research funding landscape and experience of supporting the research development pipeline from concept development through application and funder review processes. 

3.      Excellent communicator, able to interpret and explain complex information with clarity and confidence. An experienced and effective facilitator, able to lead individual and group conversations that deliver actionable insight. Excellent listening skills, able to quickly understand and explore key scientific concepts. 

4.      Excellent writing skills, with demonstrable experience of delivering clear, structured outputs that deliver results. Excellent qualitative and quantitative analytical and problem solving skills, with a solution focussed approach. 

5.      Experience of initiating, managing and delivering strategic projects with proven impact. 

6.      An engaging and inquisitive individual who thrives on building trusting relationships with experts and stakeholders at all levels. Builds and maintains good working relationships with colleagues to foster team spirit, commitment to the team and achievement of shared goals. 

7.      A confident decision maker, who knows when to ask permission and when to inform. Comfortable with ambiguity and able to work flexibly and at pace in a rapidly changing environment. An independent thinker, able and willing to challenge the status quo, with the ability to achieve goals through influence and negotiation in a complex organisational environment. 

8.      High level of work organisation, self-motivation, resilience and determination, drive for performance and improvement, and flexibility in approach and attitude. 

Desirable criteria

1.      PhD or equivalent research experience in a subject relevant to health sciences. 

2.      Experience of running scientific peer review processes. 

Downloading a copy of our Job Description 

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the page. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further Information

At King’s, we believe that the diversity of our community and a culture that is welcoming, open, inclusive and collaborative, are great strengths of the university. 

The Equality Act of 2010 protects the rights of our students and staff and provides a framework to fulfil our duties to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and in addition, to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. At times, this will include balancing rights and beliefs that can feel in tension.

We are committed to free speech and to academic freedom, believing that our foundational purpose as a university, is to create spaces where a wide range of ideas, including ideas that are controversial, can be discussed and debated, and where members of our community can express lawful views without fear of intimidation, harassment or discrimination.

When engaging in the robust exchange of ideas, we ask that our community is mindful of our Dignity at King’s guidance.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the person specification section of the job description. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving rapidly, and we recognise its growing role in professional work. Applicants may use AI tools to support preparation of their application, for example to research the role or structure written responses. However, applications must reflect the applicant’s own work and experience. AI tools should not be used during interviews or assessment activities unless this has been agreed in advance as a reasonable adjustment. Further guidance on the use of AI in recruitment can be found here.

We reserve the right to close adverts early due to the volume of applications we receive. While the closing date may change, all adverts will close at 23:59 to allow sufficient time for applications to be submitted on that day.

We encourage you to apply at the earliest opportunity to avoid disappointment as once we have closed a vacancy you will be unable to submit your application.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.

Interviews are due to be held, in person, in the week commencing the 5th or the 12th of October. Please inform us in your application if that is likely to be a problem.