Engagement Officer: Research Culture

Job Description

Engagement Officer: Research Culture6-month fixed term contract £43,310.00 - £47,516.00London 35 hours a weekHybrid 40% on site / 60% remoteAbout the companySue Hill Recruitment are pleased to be working with Imperial College in their search for a motivated, experienced and creative Engagement Officer: Research Culture to lead the scoping phase of a long-term project looking at institutional research cultureat Imperial College London. Ultimately, they hope to foster and embed a research culture that recognises the public interest in high-quality and reliable research and incentivises the practices and behaviours that lead to it. To do this, you will need to identifyand engage stakeholders across the College as well as members of the public.Good research culture sits at the intersection of quality, transparency, equity, accessibility, reliability, inclusivity, policy, governance, engagement, recognition and, increasingly, AI. Taken together, these aspects help drive excellence in research.One challenge is that the activities to support a positive research culture are distributed across many diverse areas of the institution, some exhibiting best practice, some unaware and some unrecognised as a part of the whole. Moreover, the meaning of excellenceis debated, and it’s not clear what practices and behaviours lead to excellence, quality and reliability, nor how they can be measured and incentivised.Supported by a grant from Research England until 31 July 2024, they have identified opportunities to begin understanding how to embed quality, reliability and excellence in data science, research data management (RDM) and research software engineering (RSE).You will support Imperial College to begin developing a new way of doing research and scholarly communications, promoting and recognising all inputs into the research process, by delivering a programme of engagement with stakeholders across the College,as well as members of the public in the College’s community and patients across the Imperial College NHS Healthcare Trust.You will manage engagement with data scientists, members of the public and patients, and other end-users of AI-based technology in a meaningful collaboration to explore the quality and status of research data in society, as we seek to develop a systemicapproach to openness, FAIR principles and quality in data science and AI-based applications.You will manage engagement with researchers, HR, ICT and other professional and academic staff to explore how Imperial can begin to build a culture of research and researcher evaluation that recognises and incentivises the practices and behaviours that leadto high-quality research, in assessment, hiring, promotion and funding decisions.Key Tasks & Responsibilities:

• Review existing research culture in data science (including research data management and research software engineering), and recognition and incentives.
• Collaboratively deliver a programme of engagement with stakeholders across the College, as well as members of the public in the College’s community and patients across the Imperial College NHS Healthcare Trust.
• Plan and manage four scoping workshops, co-creating the agenda and formats for the workshops and working alongside the project team and internal and external collaborators (including UKRN and guests speakers drawn from experts in the field of research culture).
• Lead on ensuring that diverse participants are involved in the workshops, with a focus on underrepresented and marginalised voices.
• Chair the workshops, including moderating discussions with expert speakers, managing breakout sessions, and facilitating group discussions working with the project team.
• Report back on summary findings of the project, working with the project team and internal and external collaborators to produce a report, evaluate the project and set out future work.

Essential requirementsWe are looking for someone with:

• experience of the research environment
• knowledge of stakeholder engagement, research culture or Open Research
• confidence in project management
• evaluation skills
• creativity, problem-solving skills and perseverance

Full job spec available on request.

Keyskills :
ResearchStakeholder EngagementOpen ResearchResearch Culture