The Alan Turing Institute is the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. The Institute is named in honour of the scientist Alan Turing and its mission is to make great leaps in data science and artificial intelligence research in order to change the world for the better.
The Alan Turing Institute with GCHQ, MoD and Dstl has formed a long-term strategic partnership to help position the Institute as a world leader in data science research and innovation. The Institute’s data science research and training are key enablers to the UK Government’s capabilities underpinning defence and security. GCHQ, MoD and Dstl include expert communities in data science and AI. By using an open-door approach to the Institute and through active collaboration with the Turing at the staff level, a free flow of skills and knowledge has been created. Researchers from the Institute, the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) – including the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) and Strategic Command within the Ministry of Defence (MOD) will work together on a research programme alongside the wider academic community.
Current research directions include large scale and adversarial machine learning computational statistics, topological and mathematical approaches to data analysis, AI for active cyber defence, modelling of global conflict, climate security and privacy-enhancing technologies PETs).
Role Purpose
The role of the Programme Director is to:
The Programme Director is supported to achieve the Programme ambitions by a Deputy Programme Director, a Programme Manager and will have access to the broader resources of the Turing Institute.
This role will report to the Institute’s newly appointed Chief Scientist.
Duties and areas of responsibility
We are seeking a self-motivated and impact driven scientist with a track record of providing research leadership, ideally in a multi-stakeholder environment. You will be scientifically credible and have experience of convening, influencing and collaborating with academic researchers of all career stages (post docs to professors) from across the UK higher education network.
You will have significant demonstrable experience of providing scientific research leadership and of working collaboratively across a breadth of stakeholders. Your background could be academia, industry or government but you will be able to demonstrate your success in convening members of your community to tackle important scientific challenges. You will be a credible spokesperson for media and other stakeholders on a broad range of fundamental and applied scientific issues in the field of defence and security.
If you have an academic background, you will have a track record of securing research funding and of building successful multi-party research collaborations across institutions both nationally and internationally.
You will have a strong understanding of research in data science and AI and you will also ideally have a good understanding of the UK higher education sector and have a strong person academic network.
Essential criteria
Desirable criteria
We would be interested to hear from candidates with an entrepreneurial spirit who enjoy leading and supporting visionary teams. The successful individual will help to ensure that the Turing identifies and maximises opportunities to develop the Programme and Turing for the future.
Please see our portal for a full breakdown of the Job Description.
This post is offered on a full-time permanent basis, but some flexibility may exist to accommodate non-competing commitments.
The salary on offer is competitive with an excellent benefits package, including flexible working and family-friendly policies, https://www.turing.ac.uk/work-turing/why-work-turing/employee-benefits
External secondments are welcome, please review the JD for more information.
Application procedure
Please see our jobs portal for full details on how to apply and the interview process.
Closing date: Tuesday 19 October 2021 at 23:59.
Equality Diversity and Inclusion
We are committed to building a diverse community and would like our leadership team to reflect this. We, therefore, welcome applications from the broadest spectrum of backgrounds.