Job vacancy: Research Collaboration Operations Manager, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, Sutton

Job summary

Main area: Administration
Grade: NHS AfC: Band 8a
Contract: Fixed term: 12 months (End Date: 31-Mar-28)
Hours: Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref: 282-CR1272

Employer: The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type: NHS
Site: Royal Marsden Hospital Sutton
Town: Sutton
Salary: £61,631 - £68,623 Per Annum
Salary period: Yearly
Closing: 16/03/2026 23:59

Research Collaboration Operations Manager

NHS AfC: Band 8a

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

For further information on this role, please see the attached detailed Job Description and Person Specification.

Develop and maintain a strategic overview of research capabilities, performance, risks and collaborative potential across the eight BRC themes to inform BRC leadership decision-making and future BRC competition planning.
Support the Theme Leads in delivering the aims and objectives of the themes, managing the annual work plan, engaging with theme members on a regular basis to capture new activity and monitor progress of existing activity and proactively identifying opportunities for cross-theme working and portfolio growth.
Identify gaps in the research portfolio, emerging strategic priorities and under-represented areas, and support developing studies to fill these gaps.
Identify and understand areas of poor performance, delivery risk or misalignment with BRC objectives, and support the Theme Leads and Clinical Unit Research Leads to take relevant steps to improve these.
Be the primary point of contact for all BRC themes-related activities, including coordination of the internal BRC pump-priming awards call from priority setting through to monitoring downstream impact and progression to external funding.

Person specification

Education/Qualifications

Essential criteria

Postgraduate qualification in biomedical/life sciences or an allied subject or equivalent experience
Project or programme management qualification/accreditation (eg PRINCE 2 or MSP) or equivalent experience such as managing NHS based clinical/health research projects/programmes

Desirable criteria

Evidence of Continuing Professional Development

Experience

Essential criteria

First-hand experience in building successful relationships between NHS Trusts, universities and industry collaborators.
Significant experience in operational leadership, including committee governance and reporting to stakeholders.
Significant experience of project managing research projects involving multiple organisations within a healthcare setting or making significant contributions to research funding applications with the aim of developing/translating technologies into patient benefit.

Desirable criteria

Previous experience of working with the NIHR.
Experience of devising and/or managing complex budgets working within the AcoRD framework.

Skills/Abilities/Knowledge

Essential criteria

High-level organisational approach to manage relationships, resource allocation and risks.
Excellent interpersonal skills and an ability to effectively network and build relationships with people from a diverse range of experience, seniority. With an ability to work beyond organisational boundaries.
Proactive problem-solving skills, with an ability to autonomously and/or collaboratively drive mitigation/resolution.
An understanding of research funder missions, remits and schemes, UK health and clinical research infrastructure and how they add value through research.

Desirable criteria

An understanding and value of the UK standards for patient and public involvement in health research.
An understanding of the importance of identifying and mitigating health inequalities through research design.

The Royal Marsden values diversity and is committed to the recruitment and retention of underrepresented minority groups. We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates, LGBTQ+ candidates and candidates with disabilities.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we are working to create a workplace that enables all staff to reach their full potential. We are committed to this because we know that greater diversity and inclusion will lead to an even greater positive impact for the people we serve.

Due to the high volumes of applications we receive, we reserve the right to close any adverts before the published closing date once we have received a sufficient number of applications. We advise you to submit your application as early as possible to prevent disappointment. Please ensure your information is accurate to avoid errors with processing your application

All applicants will be contacted by email to the address supplied on your application. Applicants are advised to check their email accounts regularly and to ensure that email filters are set to allow our emails.

Flu Vaccination – What We Expect of our Staff

At The Royal Marsden we have an immune compromised patient population who we must protect as much as we can against the flu virus. Each year, seasonal flu affects thousands of people in the UK. Occurring mainly in winter, it is an infectious respiratory disease capable of producing symptoms ranging from those similar to a common cold, through to very severe or even fatal disease.

The wellbeing of our staff and patients is of the upmost importance to us, and it is the expectation of The Royal Marsden that all patient-facing staff have an annual flu vaccination, provided free of charge by the Trust.