Pilots to the Sustainable Materials Translational Research Centre (p-SMTRC) - Research and Business Development (RBD) Officer (2 posts)

Background:

The Henry Royce Institute (Royce), a UKRI-funded national institute, supports advanced materials research and innovation. With its Hub at The University of Manchester, the Institute has spokes at ten Partner and Associate organisations: the Universities of Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, Cambridge, Cranfield, Oxford and Imperial College London, as well as at the UK Atomic Energy Authority, the National Nuclear Laboratory and the Advanced Forming Research Centre Catapult. Royce’s vision of ‘advanced materials for a sustainable society’ is delivered through:

• Enabling national materials research, collaboration, foresighting and strategy
• Providing access to world-leading facilities and research expertise
• Catalysing industrial collaboration and accelerating translation
• Fostering materials science skills development, innovation training and outreach

The Project

There is a major economic opportunity for Greater Manchester (GM) to fill the gap in companies able to provide sustainable materials for manufacturing supply chains, and reduce market failure in industries’ ability to scale up and adopt sustainable materials in manufacturing applications. GM Combined Authority (CA) and Rochdale Development Agency (RDA) have plans to realise this ambition through the creation of the Sustainable Materials Translational Research Centre (SMTRC), which will be built in Atom valley/Rochdale.

Supply Chain Pilots for the SMTRC (p-SMTRC) is a £5.5million programme InnovateUK funded programme as a part of the two-year Innovation Accelerator pilot of £100m research fund across 3 regions - Greater Manchester (GM), the West Midlands and the Glasgow city region (ca £30-35m for GM) from the government’s Levelling Up plan. This programme will support the development of SMTRC leveraging GM's existing strength in materials research, alongside the UK's High Value Manufacturing Catapult's (HVMC's) competency in building supply chain capability. The consortium, comprised of Rochdale Development Agency (RDA), University of Manchester (UoM) Institutes (Royce, Graphene Engineering and Innovation Centre (GEIC), Sustainable Materials Innovation (SMI) Hub), National Physics Laboratory (NPL), Science and Technologies Facilities Council (UKRI-STFC), and the UK's High Value Manufacturing Catapults, will exploit existing infrastructure within GM and nationally to catalyse cross-sector and cross-supply chain collaborations to drive commercialisation of developments from two of the three UK technology families in which GM has identified world-leading research positions:

• sustainable advanced materials
• AI, data and advanced computing

This is an exciting and substantive new role for an ambitious professional to work as a part of an interconnected diverse new team who, working with the Industry Fellows, the Application scientists and the Research and Business Development (RBD) team, will engage with industry (and the national catapult network), to identify, scope, and support the delivery of technical solutions in the area of materials science which cannot be supported by the existing national infrastructure due to time or resource constraints.

The purpose of tHe role is to support businesses in the Greater Manchester Region and beyond to accelerate innovation in advanced materials systems. The RBD Officer will play a crucial role in engaging businesses on projects, both in the provision of advice and in managing the transition to assessment and through translating innovation, and connecting regional businesses to national supply chain needs in advanced materials including polymers, composites, biomaterials, technical textiles coatings, and digital manufacturing of materials. They will work closely with the wider University research Institutes and centres (i.e. Royce/GEIC/Sustainable Materials Innovation Hub) and consortium partners’ technical and research teams to support businesses primarily SMEs throughout their journey. The RBD Officers will be line managed by the Research and Business Development Manager Lead to the project at the Henry Royce Institute and will report also to the Principal Investigator on the grant.

As an equal opportunities employer we welcome applicants from all sections of the community regardless of age, sex, gender (or gender identity), ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation and transgender status. All appointments are made on merit.

Our University is positive about flexible working – you can find out more here

Blended working arrangements may be considered

Please note that we are unable to respond to enquiries, accept CVs or applications from Recruitment Agencies.

Enquiries about the vacancy, shortlisting and interviews:

Name: Dr. Michelle Ledward – Royce Research and Business Development Manager

Email: michelle.ledward@manchester.ac.uk

General enquiries:

Email: People.recruitment@manchester.ac.uk

Technical support:

https://jobseekersupport.jobtrain.co.uk/support/home

This vacancy will close for applications at midnight on the closing date.

Please see the link below for the Further Particulars document which contains the person specification criteria.