Post Summary

The Research Assistant (RA) will assist with managing two Horizon 2020 Innovative Training Network projects in conjunction with the School of Medicine and ADAPT Centre under the direct guidance of a senior project manager. The post holder will be located in ADAPT (with some remote working opportunities as desired) and will be responsible for the day-to-day implementation of the two programmes, including, but not limited to: communication with the early stage researchers (ESR) and consortium, providing support in the organisation of training events and seminars, preparation of management deliverables and financial and progress reports, liaising with the recruiting universities with regards to employment contracts and progress of PhDs and the organization of training secondments. With the two Coordinators, 29 ESRs, 21 academic partners in 8 countries, 11 industry partners and 62 planned secondments, the post holder will enable effective communication within the two consortia, between the different hosting institutions, the Research Executive Agency and with other partners. 

The two training networks are called HELICAL and PROTECT. HELICAL stands for “Health Data Linkage for Clinical Benefit” and incorporates a consortium of 14 beneficiaries and 13 partner organisations across Europe with a total budget of €4.05m. It is led by Prof Mark Little. Its main goal is to link healthcare record, environmental, genomic and proteomic data in the setting of autoimmune disease in three scientific work packages. Cross cutting these is a work package focused on data governance, which places this cutting-edge research firmly in the new GDPR era. The PROTECT project (led by Prof Dave Lewis) also focusses on issues of personal data, specifically how to balance the impact on rights and interests of individuals, arising from its large-scale and continuous analysis, with the benefits to the economy and society arising from rapid innovation such analysis affords. This €3.7m network will deliver multidisciplinary training with Law, Technology Ethics and Knowledge Engineering researcher leaders across 7 beneficiaries and 5 partner organisations, via a structured research programme exploring the boundaries between these three fields.

Further Information

Informal enquiries about this post should be made to Prof Little (MLITTLE@tcd.ie) or Prof Lewis (dave.lewis@tcd.ie)

Standard duties and Responsibilities of the Post

The post holder is responsible for the following across the two ITNs:

• Reporting to the European Commission and being the point of contact for all project operations including the consortia, School of Medicine and ADAPT Centre management teams, HR, finance, communications;
• Monitoring of expenditure and providing guidance on eligibility of major cost options to beneficiaries (e.g. family allowances);
• Responsibility for the coordination, planning, implementation and reporting of project events including: training seminars and workshops, seminar week, conferences and management committee meetings. Evaluating the success and learnings from these events
• Assemble data for, and report on, dissemination, communication and training activities; 
• Coordinating the preparation and signing of legal agreements for ESR secondments. Facilitating and monitoring the implementation of secondments, the quality of the secondment experience;
• Developing and maintaining the content of projects’ websites and social media channels; liaising with users on the content and format for enhanced user-experience.
• Engagement in strategic sustainability planning of the ESR training and career development practices across the ADAPT Centre, within the Schools of Medicine and Computer Science and for future Marie Curie funding proposals.
• Researching, collating, organising and editing material for inclusion in reports/documents.
• Responding to complaints and escalated issues, and resolving problems involving consortium members.

Funding Information

• European Commission through the Horizon 2020 programme.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Candidates must have a BSc degree or equivalent in a relevant discipline.
• A PhD and/or a track record of research would be advantageous.

Knowledge & Experience

Essential:

• The ideal candidate will have demonstrated experience of working in a multi-faceted team environment. They will work well under pressure and have the ability to work on their own initiative.

Desirable

• Experience working with PhD students and their supervisors.
• Experience in managing research secondments.
• Experience of managing and/or coordinating Industry-Academic research projects.

Skills & Competencies

The successful candidate will have:

• Excellent, interpersonal, communication and presentation skills – both written and verbal;
• The ability to act as an effective deputy in the absence of manager(s), with discretion to make decisions with a short-term impact to provide immediate support/problem resolution.
• A consistently high degree of personal responsibility and initiative will be required to respond independently to queries. The candidate will be able to respond independently to queries and use judgement and initiative to deal with daily unforeseen problems and circumstances, with limited guidance.
• Ability to manage competing priorities and maintain high level of professionalism when working under pressure;
• Discretion and professional approach to all activities;
• Ability to work flexibly and effectively as part of a team and to engage with multiple-disciplinary research community;
• The ability to identify long-term solutions to a problem using knowledge and experience;
• Resourceful / conscientious and self-motivated individual with a ‘can do attitude’ – ability to see tasks through to completion; 
• Excellent IT skills including experience with MS Excel, Word, Access, powerpoint, outlook etc.

Application Information 

To assist the selection process, candidates should submit a Curriculum Vitae and a Cover Letter (1x A4 page) that specifically address the following points in their application.

1. Applicants should clearly address research management experience and how they obtained their knowledge in their application.
2. Illustrate, through past example, their ability to work on their own initiative and resolve problems.

Application Procedure

Candidates should submit a cover letter together with a full curriculum vitae to include the names and contact details of 3 referees (email addresses if possible) to:

https://forms.gle/fnNkzEZ8Y9JLmyzb8 

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES EMPLOYER