Public Engagement Manager

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)

Salary:  £34,905 per annum 
Hours:  Full time 
Contract Type:  Fixed Term (12 months) 
Location:  Polaris House, Swindon, Wiltshire
Grade:  UKRI Band D
Closing Date: 11 March 2024
 

About the Arts and Humanities Research Council

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). We’re the UK’s largest funder of arts and humanities research and training.

We fund independent researchers in a wide range of subjects, including history, archaeology, digital content, philosophy, languages, design, heritage, area studies, the creative and performing arts, and many more.

The research we fund provides social and cultural and benefits that contribute to the economic success of the UK, as well as to the culture and welfare of societies around the world.

About the team

The AHRC’s Public Engagement team works to improve public participation in the research the AHRC funds, which leads to research that is higher quality, more relevant, and more useful for everyone. We add value for our research investments, improve outcomes for our researchers, and ultimately make the case for arts and humanities research in wider society.

We’re trying to create behavioural and culture change in AHRC (and UKRI) by embedding public engagement into research funding calls and by providing a professional service to other teams, with a specific focus around major investments, so that the highest quality public engagement can flourish.

We also work to create and support Public Engagement team-led public engagement opportunities, upskilling, and partnerships for our community, leading to research that is more relevant, higher quality and more useful.

About the role

The Public Engagement Manager is an essential role in the Public Engagement team.

The role leads on and delivers high profile public engagement projects (including running public engagement calls and collaborating with domain teams on embedding public engagement), develops partnerships, performs monitoring, evaluation and learning, and creates culture change within the AHRC and within our research community.

You will report to and work closely with the Senior Public Engagement Manager, as well as other public engagement professionals from across UKRI.

This role is largely remote, with an average of one day in our Swindon office each month and occasional further travel around the UK to support our projects as required.

Duties and responsibilities

Public engagement opportunities and partnerships:

·       Lead on creating and delivering specific public engagement projects and programmes, providing opportunities for our researchers at every level to engage the public with research

·       Support the Senior Public Engagement Manager in the delivery of public engagement projects and programmes

·       Identify, develop and build partnerships with relevant partner organisations to provide opportunities for our community to engage the public in research

·     Work with the Senior Public Engagement Manager to continually critically evaluate our public engagement activity, with a view to ensuring it always aligns with our public engagement strategy so it provides the best value for AHRC and our community

Embedding public engagement in AHRC and UKRI:

· Work with other teams across AHRC and UKRI to embed public engagement into research funding calls and the research process

·       Provide a professional public engagement consulting service to other teams, with a specific focus around major investments

·       Build relationships with other public engagement teams across UKRI and with our sector partners

·       Build relationships with the UKRI central Communications team as a delivery partner for our projects

·       Work closely with the Senior Public Engagement Manager on the creation and delivery of the public engagement strategy and delivery plan for the AHRC

Supporting our research community:

·       Develop the skills and experience of our research community by supporting the creation of skills and training infrastructure, guidance and support, either directly or indirectly with partner organisations

·       Support a culture change in the arts and humanities research community of creative and diverse public engagement

·       Identify opportunities for developing our research community

Evaluation and monitoring:

·       Working closely with the Strategy, Impact and Evidence and Data Analysis teams, understand the needs of our research community

·       Support the creation of benchmarks and systems to track the state of public engagement in the arts and humanities

·       Understand where there are gaps in current provision that need to be addressed, and work with the rest of the team to find creative solutions for overcoming those gaps

·       Create reports and analysis for the rest of the team and for Executive Group

Other

·       Support the wider Public Engagement team as required

About you

Qualifications

Essential

·       A relevant degree or equivalent experience in a public engagement, communications, PR, research, or other relevant role

Knowledge and skills

Essential

·       Strong project management skills, and practical experience and understanding of project management and delivery, ideally in research funding but also possibly in communications activity or planning, corporate project management, or change management

·       Some experience of contributing to culture change in an organisation

·       Experience in relationships and partnership building

·       Experience of evaluating the success of projects and using learnings to contribute to continuous improvement

·       Excellent oral and written communication skills, including an excellent standard of written English, and the ability to write papers, reports and complex correspondence as required, as well as writing for a public audience and communicating complex ideas to diverse audiences

·       Experience of working in complex and changing organisations

·       IT skills, including word-processing, spreadsheets, e-mail, databases, collaboration tools, online communication platforms and web content management systems, and remote working tools.

Desirable

·       Experience of public engagement with research, as a funder, researcher, research support practitioner, community partner, or elsewhere

·       An understanding of the public engagement with research landscape

·      Experience in research funding and managing funding calls

·       An understanding or experience of the arts and humanities research landscape and of the issues and challenges facing public engagement at the AHRC.

Workload management

Essential

·       Ability to organise and prioritise your own workload, to be flexible and manage multiple competing projects, to plan work both in the short and long term and to oversee the effective meeting of deadlines.

Personal characteristics

Essential

·       Ability to work effectively as part of a team

·       Excellent interpersonal skills, including the ability to interact across and between different groups or organisations, and to deal with a variety of people at all levels internally and externally

·       Confidence to represent the AHRC at meetings and external events and explain its policies and procedures to a range of stakeholders.

Other

Essential

· A willingness to travel and work away from the office and/or outside normal working hours on occasion.