Business, Industry, and Government (BIG) Engagement Manager
Are you seeking a new challenge in which you use your proven people skills to help deliver a high-profile, complex, national initiative? The UK’s Knowledge Exchange Hub for Mathematical Sciences [KE Hub] is seeking a dynamic and experienced professional services manager to join our core team as Business, Industry, and Government Engagement Manager. The KE Hub is an outward facing, inclusive organisation bringing the most appropriate UK-wide mathematical sciences talent to bear on challenges arising in business, industry, and government (BIG) for the mutual benefit of all parties. It is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
As Business, Industry, and Government (BIG) Engagement Manager of the KE Hub, you will play a pivotal role in enabling the KE Hub’s BIG engagement strategy. This will involve developing and managing relationships with the KE Hub’s BIG partners, growing the partnership both in terms of the number of organisations involved and breadth of sectors, and encouraging partners to participate in events and activities. Your management of this crucial interface will be key in establishing the KE Hub as the national broker of choice for engagement with academic Mathematical Sciences.
The KE Hub grant is currently held by the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge. However, it will move to a new host university, likely at the end of 2025. Therefore, as the Business, Industry, and Government Engagement Manager role is linked directly to specific grant funding, you will transfer to the new host institution along with the grant. Further information will be provided at interview.
The key responsibilities of the role include:
– Acting as the principle contact point for day-to-day interactions between the KE Hub and its Business, Industry, and Government (BIG) partners.
– Contributing to the development of the KE Hub’s BIG engagement strategy, and lead hands-on implementation of the strategy.
– Expanding engagement with BIG, establishing the KE Hub as the national broker of choice.
– Facilitating high-level conversations with BIG leadership to develop high-level relationships on collective behalf of the KE Hub’s academic partners.
– Providing KE advice and guidance to junior and senior academics, professional services staff, and BIG employees across the country, and delivering KE training.
– Identifying opportunities for regional KE activity in areas that have low levels of mathematical sciences KE. This will involve appropriate investigation and subsequent data analysis.
– Organising and delivering quarterly online BIG partnership meetings, setting the agenda, organising speakers, and giving update presentations.
What you will have
The ideal candidate will have a first degree, level 6 vocational qualification, or equivalent level of practical experience, preferably in the mathematical sciences or cognate discipline. They will have experience in, or demonstrable potential for, facilitating knowledge exchange across scientific areas between academia and business, industry, and government, as well as experience of managing projects, and working co-operatively with peers and senior colleagues. They will also have
– proven negotiating, influencing and problem-solving skills,
– the ability to work independently and manage workload with multiple competing factors,
– excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to build effective and lasting relationships,
– excellent planning, organisational, and document-writing skills,
– effective communication skills.
Launched in 2023, the KE Hub is a coordinated academic response to (i) the 2018 Bond Review (“The Era of Mathematics”), which recommended “A national centre in impactful mathematics for the UK should be created to work with industry and government to drive mathematical research through to commercialisation [… and] act as a national KE hub”, and (ii) the subsequent 2021 consultation document entitled A Knowledge Exchange Connected Centres Network for Mathematical Sciences. Our website is: https://www.kehubmaths.co.uk/
The KE Hub is funded by a grant held by INI until 30 September 2025. It has been recommended for stand-alone EPSRC funding for “Phase 2” for four years from 1 April 2025.This new grant will initially be held at INI but in the spring of 2025 there will be a national call to relocate the grant to another university; we intend that the BIG Engagement Manager, along with the grant, will move to the new host at the end of 2025.
The KE Hub is a mainly virtual organisation, with the key team members working remotely across the UK. The Management Team in Phase 2 will comprise the Scientific Director (currently Chris Breward, University of Oxford; Project Lead), three Co-Leads (Collin Bleak [St Andrews], Christine Currie [Southampton], Eleanor Stillman [Sheffield]) and an Operations Director. The KE Hub has an Executive Team which builds outwards from the Management team and includes Super Champions (members of the community running specific projects) and representatives of other parts of the national Mathematical Sciences infrastructure. The KE Hub is supported by an Advisory Board. There will be three full-time staff: an Operations Director, a Coordinator, and the BIG Engagement Manager.