Senior Policy Manager

London SE1 (hybrid office/homeworking by negotiation)

The Government is shortly going to lay out its plans for the UK to become a Science Superpower – an ambition that will only be achieved through greater collaboration between businesses and universities to unlock innovation, drive research and develop the skills needed to drive opportunity and rebalance the economy.

As the collective voice of our members, The National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB) plays a key role in this by bringing together the UK’s universities and leading businesses.

We are looking for a Senior Policy Manager to lead our policy work at the forefront of shaping policy related to business-university collaboration, and this is your opportunity to significantly contribute to one of the most important policy agendas of our time.

Working with NCUB’s network of business and university leaders you’ll understand what it will take to encourage and enable more collaboration. This is critical to drive recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, to realise the social and economic benefits of a more research-intensive, innovative economy and to tackle some of the greatest global challenges. 

The role calls for an experienced and ambitious policy expert, with an established reputation for gathering and interpreting evidence to develop impactful policy recommendations. You will be curious, engaging and capable of managing both longer-term research projects, as well as more reactive policy work. 

You’ll work closely with Government and UKRI to highlight and address barriers to collaboration, so you’ll be a confident and engaging communicator, able to work across businesses, universities and stakeholders to build a collective voice and drive genuinely transformative recommendations. Furthermore, you’ll have the ability to convey complex issues with clarity and to make a strong case for change.

Adept at gathering and communicating evidence effectively (including interpreting, explaining and presenting statistical evidence) you’ll also be skilled at producing high quality outputs aimed at a senior and strategic audience.

The National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB) is an independent think-tank and registered charity focused on making the UK the best place in the world for universities and businesses to collaborate. We believe that collaboration is critical to tackling many of the greatest challenges facing the world today, from driving the research and innovations that will help make us healthier, wealthier and greener, to delivering the highly skilled, diverse and adaptable workforce needed to drive the future.

For further information or to request a candidate application pack, please contact our retained consultant Julian Smith at Memcom executive, our specialist consultancy.

Deadline for applications: Monday 18 October at 9am.

Interviews will be held on Monday 25 October. See candidate application pack for more details.