Job details

Job title: Grants Manager

Reporting to: Head of Grants

Responsible for: Programme Officer (to be confirmed) and contracted Development Co-ordinators

Based: Remote working or office based. If office based, our Head Office is in London, but we have an agile working policy enabling people to work at another UK location up to 4 days/week (this is a trial policy and subject to review). We welcome applications from people based in other parts of the UK. Some UK travel will be required.

Terms: Full time (35 hours per week), permanent. Requests for flexible working and/or secondments will be considered​.  

Salary: £29,583 – £37,906 per annum 

About the role

We are seeking someone to join our Grants Team in delivering The Ideas Fund, an exciting new programme which looks to connect communities with researchers in order to develop and try out ideas related to mental wellbeing. The Fund is currently being delivered in four areas of the UK – Oldham, Hull, the Highlands & Islands of Scotland, and North West Northern Ireland, although the successful candidate can be based anywhere in the UK.

With support from the Head of Grants, we expect that you will have lead responsibility for our work in two of these areas, building strong relationships with our Development Co-ordinators and contributing to the successful delivery of the overall programme. You will oversee the support for grant holders to learn from what is working and feed this learning into improving future rounds of the Fund, as well as sharing insights externally.

You will work with our existing Grants Manager to ensure that our due diligence and grant reporting requirements are met, responding flexibly and creatively to issues that arise. Importantly, you will consistently focus on how we can continue to be innovative with our grant making, and how our learning can influence long term change in funding and public engagement practice.

Background to the funding programme

The Wellcome Trust awarded a grant to the British Science Association to develop a new funding programme, aimed at increasing public engagement in health research, with a focus on inclusion and diversity. After an in-depth co-production process to design the approach, The Ideas Fund was launched in January 2021.

The Fund aims to offer a supportive journey for applicants, taking a participatory approach to our delivery and decision making, and with a focus on reaching groups who are often excluded from this type of programme – such as people from minoritised ethnic backgrounds or rural communities. We work with Development Co-ordinators, who are local to each of our four areas, in order to deliver workshops, networking opportunities and one-to-one support to both applicants and grant holders. From our first round of applications, 42 projects were awarded either early-stage grants of up to £25k or larger grants of around £90k, with a further eight applicants being offered additional support in order to resubmit their proposals.

Importantly, we are working with The Social Change Agency and The Liminal Space, with a view to influencing wider change in approaches to public engagement. We expect to deliver a further open round of funding in 2022 alongside supporting our existing portfolio of grants, with our funding now confirmed to October 2023. We anticipate that the funding programme will develop and evolve, with the potential for continuing beyond the next two years.

Should you like to discuss any of this, or the role itself in more detail, please contact [email protected] to set up a call with Chris Manion, Head of Grants.

We will also be hosting a webinar for potential candidates to hear more about the Fund and the role – this will be taking place on Thursday 7 October at 3pm and you can sign up here.

Key responsibilities 

The main responsibilities will be to: 

• Work with the Head of Grants to deliver an innovative programme that constantly evolves based on what we learn.
• Ensure excellent grant-making using participatory approaches with high levels of customer satisfaction.
• Design and implement high-quality assessment, due diligence, grant management and evaluation processes and refine where appropriate.
• Support local Development Co-ordinators to:
  • Develop and manage the application pipeline to ensure the programme’s aim of reaching underserved communities is fulfilled and the grants budget is committed.
  • Work with potential applicants and collaborators to develop high quality innovative proposals.
  • Work with grant holders to overcome challenges they might face in delivering their projects.
• Develop and manage a small pipeline of discretionary grants to add value to the local portfolios, if necessary.
• Work with the Head of Grants to devise a learning and development plan for the Grants Team.
• Build and engage a network of key stakeholders to ensure successful delivery of the programme.
• Champion innovation in health research across the public engagement sector, funders and beyond, through showcasing new, improved and diverse ideas and sharing learning with a broad range of stakeholders through blogs, conferences etc.
• Support the Head of Grants with developing a strategy for the future sustainability of the grants programme.

In addition, the post-holder will be expected to:

• Support colleagues across the organisation, especially at busy times or on specific areas of expertise,
• Other duties as reasonably required by the line manager.

Person Specification

The Grants Manager role would suit someone who has strong stakeholder management skills and good attention to detail, experience of grant-making, and an understanding of the benefits and risks involved in delivering innovative grant-making approaches.

The role would suit someone who is comfortable using their judgement and working with an evolving programme, and who can confidently communicate with a variety of stakeholders.

Your experience in terms of the person specification could come from either a personal or professional background. You may not have experience of everything listed in the person specification, but will be open to challenging yourself and developing in the role.

Below is a summary of essential and desirable criteria needed for this role, as well as how we will assess a candidate’s suitability.

Essential criteria 

Essential Criteria	CV	Cover letter	Interview	Task prior to interview
Experience of grant-making	Y	Y	Y	Y
Experience of formal partnership working with a thorough understanding of the success factors and challenges to collaborative approaches and partnerships		Y	Y
Strong project management skills with the ability to manage multiple competing deadlines effectively	Y	Y	Y
Evidence of developed analytical and reasoning skills, with strong judgement and attention to detail		Y	Y	Y
Ability to develop and maintain good working relationships		Y	Y
Strong communications skills that are matched to audiences		Y	Y	Y
A self-starter, able to work on their own initiative and manage their own time effectively		Y	Y
Resilient and adaptable, with the ability to remain calm and effective when working on fast-moving, high-pressure projects		Y	Y
An understanding of the BSA’s goals and passion for our vision		Y	Y

Desirable criteria

Desirable Criteria	CV	Cover letter	Interview	Task prior to interview
Experience of grant making at a management level		Y	Y
Track record of designing successful programmes or developing organisations that benefit disadvantaged or underrepresented groups or individuals	Y	Y	Y
Experience of working in the community or voluntary sector	Y	Y	Y
Experience of working in the science engagement sector, or similar	Y	Y	Y
Experience of managing and coaching teams of people and implementing team learning and development plans	Y	Y	Y
Experience of multi-site project management and managing contractors/contractor relationships		Y	Y

Benefits 

• Agile Working policy enabling you to work at home or in another UK location up to 4 days per week, if office-based, and to vary your working hours outside our 10am-12pm and 2pm-4pm core hours (this is a trial policy & subject to review), subject to the needs of the BSA;
• 27 days holiday per annum plus bank holidays (pro-rata for part-time employees); 
• Up to two days paid leave per year for significant voluntary commitments in support of professional and personal development, such as being a trustee of a charity or a school governor;
• Auto-enrolment pension scheme (3% paid by employer);
• Up to five days’ unpaid leave per year (this is down to the Manager’s decision and ensuring it does not affect work); 
• Life assurance from your first day subject to scheme rules;  
• Occupational sick pay: up to six weeks’ full pay per year (pro-rata for part-time employees); 
• Interest-free loan for season ticket, bike to work, and assisted study.

To apply

Please send a CV and covering letter (each of no more than two A4 pages) that summarises your interest in the role and details your ability to match the criteria.

Applications should be made via this link: https://recruit.smb.co.uk/vacancy.aspx?id=vujfML7a5hRArK8l 

The closing date for applications is 9am Monday 18 October 2021. 

Interviews are due to take place the week commencing 1 November 2021.

You will be informed as soon as possible after the application deadline whether you have been selected for interview.

As part of the British Science Association’s commitment to being a Disability Confident employer, all disabled* applicants who meet the ‘essential criteria’ for this vacancy will be offered an interview under our guaranteed interview scheme.

If you wish to apply under the guaranteed interview scheme, you will be asked to indicate this when you submit your application by selecting ‘yes’ in the relevant box when asked during the application process. Applicants do not need to state any further information or declare their disability at the application stage.

Whether you are applying under the scheme or not, if you are successful in being shortlisted, we will ask candidates with disabilities or long-term health conditions to let us know if they need any adjustments during the recruitment process. 

If you have further questions or would like this information in a different format, please contact: recruitment@britishscienceassociation.org

Download the candidate pack for this role as a pdf or view our text-only version of the pack here.

Terms & conditions

From time to time the job entails working extended hours and occasional weekends, for which no overtime payments are made. The BSA operates a time off in lieu policy for weekend working and some other out-of-hours instances.

Only applicants who have a legal right to work within the UK will be considered. You will be asked to bring along proof of nationality and/or proof of ability to work in the UK.

You will also be asked to declare any previous convictions in line with your rights under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) order 1975.

This is a description of the job as it is presently constituted. It is the practice of the Association to examine job descriptions from time to time and to update them to ensure they relate to the job as then being performed, or to incorporate whatever changes are reasonably required, in discussion with the postholder.

It is the policy of the BSA to offer starting salaries at the bottom end of the salary band where appropriate.

A copy of our Privacy Notice is available on the vacancies page of our website.

*The Disability Confident scheme’s definition of disability is in line with the Equalities Act 2010: “a physical or mental condition which has a long-term and substantial effect on your daily life”.

Further information about our Disability Confident commitments can be found on the Disability Confident page of our website.