Salary range: £45,500 to £64,000 (based on skills and experience)
Permanent position
Applications closing date: 31 August 2020

View the full role, including essential skills here.

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Public Engagement with Research Manager to join our Wellcome Genome Campus Public Engagement team, playing a key role in advancing our ambitious plans for public engagement at our vibrant, multi-cultural and world-leading research Campus in South Cambridgeshire.

You will play a pivotal role in embedding engagement practice into the scientific pursuits of the Campus, and in particular the major scientific programmes of the Wellcome Sanger Institute. You will work as part of a wider effort to encourage public engagement and education to become an integral part of the working culture at the Campus, which is home also to the European Bioinformatics Institute and the Wellcome Genome Campus Biodata Innovation Centre.

About the role

You will work closely with the Head of Public Engagement to shape and develop sustainable public engagement within the Campus’ scientific programmes, identifying public stakeholder communities and shaping processes to bring their voices into the research journey. The role benefits from the capacity and expertise of a dedicated public engagement with research team, which you would manage, as well as expertise of the wider public engagement team and companion programmes across Connecting Science and wider Campus.

The scope of the role underpins key aspects of the public engagement culture change journey at the Campus, which was recognised in 2018 through a Silver Engage Watermark. Responsibilities within the Public Engagement with Research effort include the training, enabling and incentivising of staff, and encouraging the pursuit of deeper journeys of engagement with communities whose experiences, views and perspectives can help shape, influence or inform research practice and outcomes. You will play an important part in encouraging staff to take ownership of their engagement portfolio, and to reflect on the impact they can make, while ensuring monitoring and evaluation processes build effective stories of change.

An important aspect of the role will be to horizon scan for new opportunities, including those arising through national and international collaborations and/or grant making. The work of Connecting Science and the Campus institutes happens in a global context and as such, there will be opportunities to extend public engagement into other settings or make approaches available to scale, though collaborative working. This includes the scoping of innovative approaches to bring community voices into areas of Campus science and genomics and biodata more broadly, working with all parties and identifying partners to build strong foundations for new ideas. These could be aimed at outcomes around creating new understanding or mutual learning, trust and value between scientific and public communities – for example around emerging areas of genomics research and its application. Other examples might feature the development of novel formats that reach people who are otherwise unlikely to engage with Campus science, but whose perspectives and experiences are vital to broaden and enrich our engagement work.

As a senior member of the team, you will work closely and strategically with other colleagues across Public Engagement, Connecting Science and the institutes on Campus. Within PE, this will include our Education and Learning Manager, particularly where motivators for engagement and target audiences identify with an education setting. Cross-team working will also involve our Exhibition and Interpretation Coordinator ensuring activity developed with staff and community groups takes advantage of broader creative platforms around Campus experience, events and online engagement.

You will be encouraged to develop skills and networks through the role, and to achieve greater impact by working with partners appropriate to the advancement of particular projects.