Head of Research Impact Strategy & Delivery – Research Strategy & Services Division – 107385 – Grade 9 Full Time NEW

Position Details

Research Strategy & Services Division

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £58,225 to £67,468 with potential progression once in post to £87,974

Grade: 9

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 19 th May 2026

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

Background

The University of Birmingham is a global institution working within a diverse and vibrant City, offering an inspiring education to our students, and undertaking critically important research.We are a place of open, critical thinking, and the creation, sharing and dissemination of knowledge. As part of our professional services team, you’ll provide outstanding support to our researchers and help the University to grow its influence regionally, nationally, and globally. We ensure the University’s resources are used wisely, manage and improve the infrastructure which sits at the heart of the institution, and support decisions to be made quickly and based on sound evidence.Our Birmingham Professional programme operates across the University, supporting colleagues to network and collaborate, offering opportunities to learn and develop, contributing to the delivery

Research and Impact

The University is one of the UK’s most successful institutions in terms of research. In the latest Research Excellence Framework, we placed 10th in terms of GPA, with the highest rise in position of any Russell Group university, and with significant improvements across the breadth of our disciplines – a genuine University-wide achievement. Our areas of research excellence are unusually comprehensive for a UK university, with a submission to 28 of a possible 34 Units of Assessment in the REF2021. The total value of research funding won by the University has grown rapidly in recent years, and we now have a portfolio of over 2,800 live projects with an award value to the University of over £900 million. Following several years of growth in research awards, our annual research income is now over £220m.

Our research generates lasting regional, national, and international impact, making a positive different to the economy, our environment, and to people’s lives. Research Impact is core to the University’s Strategic Framework 2030, which sets out our ambition to be a global top 50 university by 2030. Our Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Dom Moran leads our institutional Research Impact Strategy- this aims to foster an environment that embeds impact from the outset of research. A team of Research Impact Development Partners (RIDPs) and Academic Impact Lead from across our university are helping to make this a reality.

We seek to be in the top 10 once again – or higher – for research impact in REF2029, are are seeking a strategic and delivery-focused leader to operationalise this ambition across the institution.

The Head of Research Impact will play a pivotal leadership role within the Research Strategy & Services Division (RSSD), taking responsibility for delivering and sustaining a high-quality, institutional pipeline of impact case studies and ensuring readiness for the next REF2029 and future exercises.

Role Summary

The Head of Research Impact provides strategic and operational leadership for the development, coordination and delivery of research impact across the University.

Working closely with the Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research Impact), the Director of Business Engagement and Research Impact (BERI), and College leadership teams, the role holder will lead the development of a high-performing institutional approach to research impact—ensuring that impact is embedded from the earliest stages of research design, supported throughout the research lifecycle, and evidenced effectively for REF and other national and international assessment frameworks.

The role will oversee the University’s REF impact portfolio and preparations for REF2029 and future exercises, while also strengthening the University’s wider impact culture, partnerships, funding success, and regional, national and international influence.

Main Duties

• Lead the development and implementation of the University’s Research Impact Strategy, working closely with the DPVC (Research Impact), BERI leadership, and College teams, to ensure alignment with our Birmingham 2030 ambitions and to ensure that the University’s research impact activity enhances our reputation as a leading global research institution.
• Contribute to the strategic leadership of the Business Engagement and Research Impact (BERI) service as a member of the BERI Senior Management Team, supporting cross-service coordination of research partnerships, engagement, and impact.
• Manage a team of 9 Research Impact professionals, being responsible for creating a strong and inclusive ‘one team’ culture that can work in agile way in and across research disciplines, reflective of the demands of impact partners and funders.
• Provide expert operational leadership and co-ordination of the University’s REF2029 and future research excellence submissions, working alongside the DPVC (Research Impact) and College Impact & Engagement Leads, and provide authoritative advice to academic staff and senior leadership on REF impact case study development.
• Develop and oversee institutional frameworks that embed impact considerations across the research life-cycle, from early-stage research development through to partnership building, policy engagement, and evidence capture. Identify emerging opportunities, and policy developments relating to research impact, advising the University on their strategic implications and opportunities.
• Provide specialist advice and guidance to colleagues across the BERI team to support the wider development of REF impact knowledge and create increased capacity and capability to support REF impact case studies across the team. Work with BERI and colleagues from across the University to strengthen the University’s profile and influence in policy, industry, and societal engagement.
• Work closely with colleagues from across the University, to leverage support to increase the gravitas of individual impact case studies – including colleagues working with industry, across public sector partners, regionally, nationally and international.
• Lead initiatives to strengthen the University’s research impact environment, ensuring that impact is recognised, supported and celebrated across disciplines and career stages, including the development of training, mentoring and development opportunities for research to enhance their understanding of research impact and the pathway to achieving it.
• Oversee the development and effective use of institutional systems and processes for capturing and evidencing research impact, working with the RSSD Research Performance & Systems Team to ensure robust data, evidence capture, and reporting mechanisms to support the REF and wider impact monitoring.
• Work closely with Research Development and Pre-Award teams across RSSD and the College Hubs to ensure that ambitious and credible impact strategies are embedded within major research funding proposals, including UKRI, Horizon Europe and other strategic funding programmes.
• Undertake any other duties commensurate with the level of the role.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

Education and Experience

• Educated to degree level or with equivalent professional experience gained in a research-intensive or regulatory environment.
• Strong working knowledge, and experience of the UK higher education and research sector and environment.
• Proven leadership and team management experience, ideally in complex matrix environments.

Specialist Knowledge

• Extensive experience in research impact development and REF impact case study delivery, ideally within a research-intensive university.
• Deep understanding of the REF impact framework, criteria, and expectations—including policy and sector developments in this area.

Advisory And Analytical Skills

• Outstanding project and programme management skills, including timeline planning, risk management, and stakeholder coordination.
• Strong data and systems awareness, ideally including familiarity with research information systems (e.g. PURE).

Communication and Engagement

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, including the ability to influence senior academic leaders and coach case study authors.
• Ability to analyse complex evidence, write persuasively, and support narrative development for a range of audiences.
• Confident in building relationships and communicating with credibility at all levels, including with senior leaders, researchers, and external partners.

Collaboration and Influence

• Experience of working collaboratively across teams to deliver shared outcomes.
• Skilled in building professional networks and influencing change through constructive dialogue and engagement.
• A strategic thinker who delivers; proactive, resilient, and comfortable working under pressure and to REF-level deadlines.

Organisational and Strategic Awareness

• Good understanding of the research environment within a UK higher education context, and the operational realities of delivering a Research Excellence submission for a large and complex institution.
• Proactive in keeping abreast of external developments and emerging change that will effect the development, submission and success factors for the REF2029 submission.

Values and Professionalism

• Committed to academic values and the societal impact of research.
• Collaborative and inclusive, able to build consensus across diverse disciplines and perspectives.
• Innovative and improvement-focused, always seeking better ways to support research and researchers.

Informal enquiries to Helen Lau, email: h.l.r.lau@bham.ac.uk

View our staff values and behaviours here

Use of AI in applications: We want to understand your genuine interest in the role and for the written elements of your application to accurately reflect your own communication style. Applications that rely too heavily on AI tools can appear generic and lack the detail we need to assess your skills and experience. Such applications will unlikely be progressed to interview.

We believe there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website .