Head of Grants Office

Administration
- EMBL Heidelberg

**Purpose of the role**

The jobholder will work closely with EMBL’s Strategic, International relations and Scientific teams to coordinate and identify new funding opportunities where EMBL’s capabilities in scientific research, the provision of scientific services and training have the potential to contribute to funders’ and EMBL goals in a complementary way.

**Context**

EMBL has a long and successful history in identifying and obtaining external funds to further enhance its research activities, to provide services including world-renowned databases of scientific information such as Ensembl and UniProt, and to support training and science education programmes.

As an International Organisation EMBL operates outside national legislative frameworks, which adds complexity when ensuring compliance to specific legal standards required by many funders. A deep and thorough understanding of EMBL’s legal personality and context is essential to the role.

Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, the Head of Grant Office leads a team of around 15 staff based across the 6 EMBL sites.

Your role
- Lead on maintaining strong trust-based relationships with current funders and establishing new relationships with potential funders.
- Work closely with the Heads of International Relations, Head of Strategy and Resource Development to ensure alignment of external funding strategy with member state relationships and identification of grant opportunities that aim to further the delivery of EMBL’s overall strategy.
- Work closely with the EMBL Scientific community and the International Centre for Advanced Training to set and communicate the external grant income strategy, consider and collate research impact, ensure effective monitoring and reporting in line with EMBL’s mission, goals and values through the use of appropriate tools and cross team systems.
- Review and streamline EMBL’s grants administration and promote a culture of excellent customer service to EMBL’s wider scientific community.
- Oversee and work with the multi-sited grants team to review, negotiate and finalise individual grant agreements, consortium agreements and other

You have
- A graduate degree in the life sciences, or other relevant business-related qualifications in areas such as finance or legal.
- Significant experience in grants management and decision-making gained in a scientific environment.
- Proficient in successfully identifying funding sources and managing relations with research funding bodies at multiple levels.
- Proven record of creating an enabling environment in an international setting - leading, mentoring, motivating, and developing people with diverse national and cultural backgrounds.
- Demonstrable track record of delivery in matrix organisations.
- In-depth understanding of grants contracts and compliance.
- Proactive approach to working with funders and understanding their goals and requirements.
- Thorough understanding of the contract management cycle.
- Practical understanding of important elements of contractual intellectual property rights
- Financial awareness and an ability to oversee and manage budgets.
- Analysis and an ability to interpret and handle management information.
- Knowledge of data protection requirements relating to medical data.
- Highly developed leadership skills
- Effective communication of complex legal and compliance matters to experts and to non-experts.
- Stakeholder management.
- Excellent problem-solving and team working, with the desire and ability to craft solutions within multi-disciplinary groups.
- Written and spoken English.

You might also have
- Experience of working with government funding bodies across more than one country.
- Practical understanding of Data Protection principles.
- Familiarity with tools and software required for research information management for example EMBL uses Converis, ERP software (EMBL operates SAP), and associated analytical reporting tools.
- An ability to write high level strategic reports, business cases and committee papers.
- Good presentations skills.
- Further languages would be advantage particularly in German, French and or Spanish.

Why join us

EMBL is curiosity-driven, community-oriented and international. As an inclusive, equal opportunity employer, we believe that diversity enables us to collaborate more effectively and be innovative in our approaches.

EMBL offers attractive conditions and benefits appropriate to an international research organisation with a very collegial and family-friendly working environment. Competitive salary and social security benefits, financial support for relocation, a relaxed culture, professional development, an on-site nursery, canteen and other staff facilities make EMBL a great place to work.

What else you need to know

We are Europe’s research laboratory for the life sciences - an intergovernmental organisation performing scientific research in disciplines