Training Officer in Saffron Walden

EMBL is Europes flagship laboratory for the life sciences an intergovernmental organisation with more than 80 independent research groups covering the full spectrum of molecular biology. It operates from six sites, Heidelberg (HQ), Barcelona, Cambridge, Grenoble, Hamburg and Rome.

The EMBL-EBI Training team delivers a world-recognised programme that includes virtual and face-to-face training for a global audience, alongside self-paced online learning, live webinars, and capacity building through secondments and train-the-trainer workshops. The team also contributes to a high number of externally funded projects.

Training the next generation of scientists is a core mission of the EMBL. EMBLs Internal Scientific Training team coordinates EMBLs Predoctoral and Postdoctoral programmes, which host around 500 fellows at any given time. Both programmes leverage EMBLs interdisciplinary and dynamic scientific environment and, together with the EMBL Fellows Career Service and the Complementary Scientific Skills programme, provide world class training and career development for our fellows.

Both teams sit under the umbrella of the EMBL\’s International Centre for Advanced Training (EICAT) which delivers an EMBL wide programme of internal and external training events.

Your role

Due to existing team members taking on additional responsibilities, an opportunity has arisen for a Scientific Training Officer. This is a project-limited, one-year role. This role will work across the EMBL-EBI Training programme, based in Hinxton and the Internal Scientific Training Team, based in Heidelberg.

The primary focus of the position is to develop and deliver training courses and knowledge exchange workshops – including both data science training for developers and users of biomedical data services, and complementary scientific skills training aimed at EMBLs PhDs and postdocs on topics such as grant writing, scientific project management and critical thinking.

The post reports to both Scientific Training Lead and Fellows Skills and Career Development Lead. It involves substantial autonomy and requires extensive interactions with others at and beyond EMBL. The role will involve European travel, primarily between the UK and Germany but also to other EMBL sites.

Responsibilities include:

• Supporting the Scientific Training Lead (Core) and Fellows Skills and Career Development Lead to develop and deliver training courses and knowledge exchange workshops – virtually and onsite at Hinxton and Heidelberg. Development involves liaison with hosts and trainers to ensure that course and workshop programmes meet the needs of their target audiences. Delivery involves being present throughout the duration of these courses, which involves some work outside of normal office hours. Some of this work may be done in association with externally funded projects.
• Contributing to the collection and analysis of training statistics with other colleagues.
• Monitoring and responding to feedback from courses and workshops for the purposes of quality control.
• Developing training materials for face-to-face and online delivery.
• Training on courses where appropriate, both virtually and onsite at Hinxton and Heidelberg.
• Assisting others to develop their training skills, both within and beyond EMBL.
• Working with events organisers and other colleagues to deliver training events and ensure that course information (including web pages) is kept up to date.
• Assisting in marketing the courses and workshops, as and when required.

You have

• A PhD, and ideally some postdoctoral experience, in the molecular life sciences or a related subject
• Experience in training other researchers and/or development of training materials or documentation
• Experience in communicating complex concepts to scientists, ideally in a learning environment
• Ability to work to deadlines; good time management, management of own workload and organisational skills
• Familiarity with using large biological or biomedical data sets to answer research questions
• Comfortable in using remote collaboration tools and digital project management software (e.g. Zoom, Slack, Trello, Asana, Jira, or similar software)
• Demonstrable enthusiasm for both the scientific and the andragogic aspects of the role
• Highly self-motivated and able to engage and enthuse others
• Ability to communicate with a wide range of audiences
• Confident facilitator and negotiator
• Contributes to a culture of integrity and trust among collaborators, building mutual understanding and helping to set realistic expectations

You may also have

• A teaching or training qualification
• Experience managing or providing contributions to projects in an international setting, ideally including EU- or other publicly funded projects
• Experience of programming and/or bioinformatics analysis
• Experience working in a matrix management structure
• Ability to take the lead on projects of varying complexity where required