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 climate emergency is intensifying. Globally, $60 billion of early stage capital has been invested into startups contributing to tackling the net zero challenge. “The analysis shows the urgency of the opportunity, and gap to close, to support and scale innovative technologies and business models to address the climate crisis,” comments Celine Herweijer, global leader, Innovation & Sustainability, PwC UK.

The first of its kind at the Institute, this programme is being launched to support the formation and growth of new companies in Data-Driven and AI ClimateTech. The Institute will provide its independent, scholarly and expert help to entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs in ClimateTech.

We are recruiting two Research Application Managers who will work to embed the expertise in the TPS, Turing Way, and broader open source and modelling communities across ClimateTech startups, to ensure that the Turing support to entrepreneurs delivers FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) outputs that are greater than the sum of their parts.

Role Purpose

A Research Application Manager (RAM) at the Turing builds and nurtures the connections with users of research outputs and brings back the user perspective to researchers and research engineers. We anticipate that the postholder will need to embody core values of legacy, adaptability, and collaboration, in addition to their commitment to equity and inclusion principles as described in the Turing’s Values (see below).

RAMs work in a dedicated team focused on ensuring that research outputs such as open source tools, protocols, and modelling frameworks are used successfully and sustainably by external stakeholders. As part of this broad mandate, the postholder will work on initiating new links between ClimateTech startups and the research community.

This is a new team at the Institute and the postholder will need to be someone who takes the initiative and thrives when given a large degree of autonomy and flexibility. The role has considerable similarity to that of a product manager in a tech firm, but with significant adjustments to update it for the research context. The skills required are likely a combination of technical acumen and service delivery experience. RAMs will work on multiple projects concurrently, and each project will be different in different ways. The postholder will need to understand how their adaptability is a strength that will inspire team members, without undermining a determined perseverance on delivering useful outputs.

Duties And Areas Of Responsibility

• Drive the Institute's efforts to maximise the impact of academic research across the wider ecosystem. Ensure that the outputs of research, from anywhere, are translated into real-world implementations that address the climate emergency with action.
• Identify challenges that ClimateTech entrepreneurs have in deploying tools built by the research community and co-create solutions as an active member
• Reach out to and sustainably communicate with open source communities to raise awareness of and get feedback on tools being built for ClimateTech entrepreneurs.
• Work closely with teams within ClimateTech startups to understand their needs at the appropriate level of technical and infrastructure detail to ascertain whether particular research outputs could be useful in their product or workflow.
• Work with the Turing Communications team to promote achievements and capabilities to the wider ecosystem, highlighting significant advances in the UK in ClimateTech.
• Communicate technical topics to colleagues and external partners by preparing and presenting reports, blog posts, organising and delivering presentations, and taking an active role in meetings and discussions

Essential

• Hold a Bachelor’s degree or a Master’s Degree in a discipline which provides a good basis for understanding statistics, data science and programming.
• Experience in stakeholder engagement, for instance, experience working with consortium partners, research collaborators, delivery partners, or clients.
• Experience with basic coding skills in any programming language
• Knowledge of, or interest in learning about, reproducible research
• Outstanding communication skills, both oral and written
• Leads, oversees and monitors progress of key deliverables and timescales through probation/appraisal and takes appropriate action to deal with any issues or problems.

Please see the Job description attachment for a full breakdown of the duties and responsibilities as well as the person specification.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

If you are interested in this opportunity, please click the apply button below. You will need to register on the applicant portal and complete the application form including your CV and covering letter. If you have questions about the role or would like to apply using a different format, please contact them on 020 3970 2148, or email [email protected].

CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS: 30 January 2022 at 23:59

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

This full-time post is offered on a 2-year, fixed term contract basis. The annual salary is £46,700, plus excellent benefits, including flexible working and family friendly policies, https://www.turing.ac.uk/work-turing/why-work-turing/employee-benefits

EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

The Alan Turing Institute is committed to creating an environment where diversity is valued and everyone is treated fairly. In accordance with the Equality Act, we welcome applications from anyone who meets the specific criteria of the post regardless of age, disability, ethnicity, gender reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

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.

Reasonable adjustments to the interview process will be made for any candidates with a disability.

Please note all offers of employment are subject to obtaining and retaining the right to work in the UK and satisfactory pre-employment security screening which includes a DBS Check.

Full details on the pre-employment screening process can be requested from [email protected].