Education Policy Associate

IPReg is the independent regulatory body for patent and trade mark attorneys. The Legal Services Act 2007 (LSA) requires those involved in the regulation of legal services to separate the representative activities of their professional bodies from their regulatory functions. IPReg regulates around 3,440 individual attorneys (of whom around 70% are patent attorneys, 24% are trade mark attorneys and 6% are on both registers). We also regulate around 250 firms.

Some of the matters that we are responsible for include:

• Setting and enforcing our Core Regulatory Framework.
• Setting the education and training requirements for qualification as a patent attorney and as a trade mark attorney.
• Maintaining the registers of patent attorneys and trade mark attorneys.
• Setting the requirements for continuing professional development in order that patent attorneys’ and trade mark attorneys’ knowledge, skills and expertise are maintained at a high level.
• Investigating complaints of misconduct and, where appropriate, taking disciplinary or other action.

This is an exciting time to join the IPReg executive team. Our education review is an ambitious project that will launch in the spring of 2025. This follows a concerted period of scoping its purpose and areas of focus and planning how it will be progressed as a project. The review will form a substantial, phased project undertaken in strong collaboration with stakeholders.

The Education Policy Associate will make a significant contribution to how the project is run and to the delivery of its intended outputs and outcomes. This role will contribute to how we take a robust, evidence-informed approach to key topics, including those to do with equality, diversity and inclusion; how we draw on best practice in professional education and assessment and ensure rigour in our project management and reporting processes; and how we secure and enable stakeholder input and feedback across the life of the project.

This role will provide the opportunity to develop your career in a regulatory and legal services context and to work as part of a small, friendly and high-functioning executive team. You should be keen to take the next stage in developing your career in education policy. You should be looking to build on and to apply the knowledge, skills and experience you have gained to date in professional regulation and/or the higher education sector, including in relation to quality assurance processes. You should have strong skills in managing, analysing and presenting data and information and in producing briefing materials and progress reports. You should enjoy co-ordinating and contributing to stakeholder engagement activity, both online and in-person.

Some of the key responsibilities:

• Contribute to taking an evidence-based approach to the education review, including within the core project activities of information-gathering, calls for evidence, consultation, and synthesising and analysing feedback to inform the project’s outputs.
• Support the review’s strong focus on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) issues within all project components and how activity is undertaken.
• Contribute to stakeholder communications activity across the review stages, including generating content and managing the use of two-way communication channels with stakeholders.
• Input to designing and delivering stakeholder engagement activities, including via project-specific events (online and in-person) and optimising use of channels and networks in the sector.
• Support progress reporting and monitoring within the review’s governance arrangements, including by preparing regular update reports and maintaining the project risk register (with input from the wider team).
• Co-ordinate the project-specific groups, ensuring meetings are scheduled to fit the project timeline and maintain the progression of activity.

Some of the essential competencies we are looking for:

• An understanding of education policy from a regulatory perspective, including in relation to high-stakes assessment processes.
• Experience of contributing to the development and implementation of education policies.
• Experience of supporting stakeholder engagement activity, using a mix of channels, networks and media.
• An understanding and experience of quality assurance and enhancement processes within professional regulation and/or the higher education sector.