Strategic Manager - Integrative Secretariat

UK Research and Innovation

Salary: £45,272 per annum
Hours: Full time (Flexible working options available)
Contract Type: Open Ended.
Location: Polaris House, Swindon (Hybrid working available but will include at least 1 day a week in the office in addition to occasional travel to support the board)

Closing date: Sunday 6th April 2025

This is an exciting opportunity to join the Investment Planning and Strategy (IPS) group at the heart of UKRI. The IPS group works in an integrative way to harness the collective expertise across UKRI to set overall strategy for the organisation, lead investment planning, develop our impact evidence base and increase resilience and sustainability in the R&I system. We work collaboratively alongside colleagues in DSIT and other government departments, building the case for investment in R&I and to ensure UKRIs investment portfolio as a whole has the maximum impact on the economy and society.

The Integrative Secretariat Function:

This role is based in the new Integrative Secretariat Function that supports the Board and Executive in delivering UKRI’s Strategy and key priorities. The team is responsible for the effective operation of the UKRI Board, Executive Committee and their sub-committees – providing a professional end-to-end secretariat function. The function has a critical integrative role, acting as a key interlocutor to help make strategic connections and join up decisions so they are brought forward to the Board and committees in a timely manner. With oversight right across UKRI’s strategic and operational portfolio, this new team will build excellent relationships and collaborate with all councils and the corporate hub, ensuring a good understanding of relevant and dependant issues to support a ‘one UKRI perspective’. The team will have an integrative approach to delivery, working seamlessly with Strategy teams, corporate functions, CEO office, private offices and others to enable strategic forward planning supported by timely, complementary and collective decisions to ensure we are an effective and efficient organisation.

Job Purpose

The Strategic Manager is a critical role within the Integrative Secretariat Function that connects organisational strategy with the core day-to-day activities of the team, ensuring they are aligned and prioritised, delivering quality outputs with high impact. This is a demanding position at the heart of the organisation, providing individuals with exposure right across UKRI, its scientific communities and Government partners. 

A key part of this role is to coordinate the information flow between the Board, committees and senior management to enable and support joined-up decision-making and effective management of key strategic issues. The Strategic Manager will also help manage the day-to-day activities of team, ensuring the delivery of an efficient and dynamic secretariat service.

The Strategic Manager is a varied and challenging role, which requires you to be able to build trusted relationships with stakeholders, deliver at pace, communicate and collaborate effectively with exceptional attention to detail. The role requires a high level of strategic awareness and plays a critical role in UKRI’s success and has a direct impact on the delivery of its key priorities.

Key responsibilities of the role include to:

• Support the delivery of an efficient and dynamic secretariat service through the management of a full range of secretariat activities, including end-to-end meeting planning, development and implementation
• Work closely with senior leaders and support the team to ensure agendas are strategically aligned and drive forward the delivery of UKRI’s Strategy and key priorities
• Coordinate Board and committee information flows, ensuring effective and dynamic knowledge-sharing and join-up on key strategic issues and decisions. This includes regular engagement with the IPS senior leadership team, CEO office, Operational Leadership Team, Executive Chairs and other senior leaders and staff across UKRI to ensure clarity of messages and decisions and high levels of transparency
• Maintain a good level of strategic awareness and build understanding Integrative Secretariat Function across UKRI through active participation at key meetings, forums and networks
• Manage the quality of secretariat outputs (e.g. minutes, reports, schedules) and help to set professional standards, share best practice and improve secretariat processes that support an inclusive ‘one-UKRI’ culture
• Coordinate and support periodic reviews of UKRI Boards and committees.
• Manage local team budget, risk and assurance processes
• Maintain a good understanding of UKRI governance policies and procedures, supporting compliance and referring matters to the UKRI Governance Team as required
• This job description is only an outline of the tasks, responsibilities and outcomes required of the role and the job holder will carry out any other duties as may reasonably be expected by their line manager. Within the flexible and agile working style of IPS, individual remits and responsibilities may evolve and change to manage the broader range of work priorities across the team, group or organisation as required.

Essential Criteria

• Strong communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to build and maintain strong working relationships with a wide range of senior stakeholders (S&I)
• Ability to see the bigger picture, ensuring that plans and activities align with organisational priorities and take account of the wider landscape and range of stakeholder perspectives (S&I)
• Strong planning and organisational skills, including an ability to balance competing priorities and work under pressure to deliver to very tight deadlines in a fast-paced environment (S&I)
• Experience in providing high quality written and verbal advice suitable for executive and senior level decision makers (S&I)
• Sound judgement and reasoning skills with the ability to evaluate how and when to engage with and escalate issues (S&I)
• Well-developed problem-solving skills, including the ability to identify and analyse options and recommend solutions (S&I)
• Ability to produce high quality written documents and meeting reports that that meet the requirements of senior stakeholders (S&I)
• Ability to manage issues with a high level of tact, diplomacy, integrity, resilience, patience and discretion (S&I)

Desirable

• Experience of secretariat work and/or working closely with governing boards and committees of large organisations, including minute taking (S)
• A good understanding of the UK research and innovation funding landscape, including the role of UKRI and the current political context within which UKRI operates (S)
• An understanding of UKRI governance frameworks and policies (S)

(S) – Assessed at shortlisting

(I) – Assessed at interview

(S&I) – Assessed at both shortlisting and interview