Senior grant advisor large-scale collaborative projects

As an experienced grant advisor, you will have a specialised role in the Research Office’s Funding & Support domain with regards to large-scale grants such as the large infrastructure and investment programs National Growth Fund and Large-Scale Research Infrastructures (LSRI/GWI). You will play a major role in the guidance and development of these complex (inter)national multi-partner grant applications together with other multidisciplinary colleague professionals in the support of principal investigator(s), consortia and our organisation.

You partner up with the internal and external actors to come to the best consortium, proposal and project. You scout opportunities, co-organise information sessions and give workshops. You are in close contact with the proposal principal investigator(s). You can be in charge of managing all parts of the proposal preparation from the idea phase to the final submission.

For these type of mostly public-private collaborative grants, you are a proposal development expert on themes as impact, theory of change, business cases, sustainability strategies, sustainable earning capacity and the substantiation on long term economic and societal prognosis. In some cases, you translate and co-write parts of the proposal turning it into a more successful application. You can also identify and manage risks upfront by adding the right expertise to the project. You will work closely with your colleague grant advisors/-writers and project managers, with support staff in departments, divisions, strategic themes and directions. The Research Office grows fast. You invest with positive energy in the professional development of the team. With your experience you are a sparring partner within the team for the other grant advisors and coach them on the job when it comes to communication, content and process. You will have the opportunity to work within our networks on side-projects, internally and/or externally.

Given the nature of complex cross-divisional large-scale subsidy programs, the UMC Utrecht has established a (department overarching) team dedicated to support projects in these subsidy programs. You will be one of the representatives of the Research Office (RO) in this team.

This team, led by RO, will also consist of professionals with different expertise like impact, implementation, management, strategic collaboration and finance, work together on the process-guidance, overview and support of these large-scale grants. You will oversee and manage calls to ensure a good planning and quality. You co-develop and collaborate in a strong internal and external network of experts needed to engage in these projects where relevant. In this position, you will have a front-row seat in identifying opportunities and help build strong consortia. For the organisation, researchers and innovators you become a trusted partner in the endeavour of obtaining funding.

The Research Office (RO) is part of the Strategy & Policy Department of UMC Utrecht. The RO is the strategic partner in research and innovation for internal and external stakeholders of the UMC Utrecht. We advise and support the board of directors, divisions, directions and strategic programs on the development, implementation and evaluation of the research and innovation strategy within the UMC Utrecht. We address the local, regional, national and international positioning of the UMC Utrecht research. We are the point of contact for researchers and other stakeholders for innovation- and funding opportunities and support. Our broad palette of activities is concentrated in four domains within the RO: Research Policy & Quality, Academic Career, Networking and Funding & Support.

The RO’s Funding & Support domain aims to support and team up with our researchers and innovators to obtain research & innovation grants, providing full-cycle support. We also focus on smart research funding tooling and an overall improvement of research and innovation support. We believe in setting the example and strive for a research(er)-friendly ecosystem. Through different channels, including through the contact with the strategic themes we reach the researchers and support the acceleration of key areas.

Since 2018, we have grown from three to twenty people, this makes us a relatively young team.

We seek an experienced professional who knows their ways in the field of academia and large scale infrastructure- and innovation grants. You must be fluent in Dutch and English and have profound knowledge of the grant application process for the grant schemes National Growth Fund and LSRI. Additional experience with large scale research grant programs like Horizon Europe Research Infrastructures, IHI and NWO Gravitation are beneficial. You have an academic training in life sciences with preferably a PhD. You have extensive experience in advising on the financial and business aspects of complex infrastructure and investment grants. Overall, you must have at least 5 years of grant writing and funding advice experience, of which at least 2 years as a senior advisor with your own project portfolio.

In your work, you:

• Have a positive and a proactive attitude and combine policy skills with a hands-on approach;
• Are a self-starter that shows initiative;
• Are service-oriented and an efficient communicator;
• Are a real team player and able to establish and maintain interpersonal relations;
• Have a good sense of management relations, easily connect and collaborate at different levels and can function tactfully and diplomatically, with all kinds of different internal and external stakeholders;
• Have the ability to form and articulate contractual, technical, financial, and strategic value points and strategic trade-offs with partners and internal teams;
• Are an excellent writer with advanced editing skills in both English and Dutch and with strong communication and presentation skills
• Are able to prioritize and focus on results;
• Demonstrate strategic and creative thinking, strong quantitative and analytical abilities, and problem-solving skills with developed attention to detail;
• Are an exceptional problem solving and analytical skills with the ability to frame new, ambiguous and complex issues.
• Are flexible and have good organizational skills;
• Have an excellent project management ability, capable of leading multiple time-sensitive cross-functional projects;
• Are open to an international and diverse working environment;

With the flexibility of a hybrid working environment, you enjoy working at the office where you meet with your colleagues and researchers, to catch-up, deep-dive in content or work hard towards deadlines. We expect you to develop and maintain a good and healthy work-life balance. You are willing to contribute to the professional development of our services and a research(er)-friendly ecosystem. In our team it’s about making it happen and opportunities. Together we have built a wonderful international team, we trust each other, are socially engaged and really enjoy working together. We have an open culture, where everyone’s.

Depending on your experience, we will position this job in salary scale 11 or 12. This will be a temporary appointment for 1 year with the intention of extension to a permanent position.