Director of Research and Innovation

Director of Research and Innovation – NERC

Salary: £94,931 – £117,800 per annum (this is the full-time equivalent; actual salary will be pro rata for part-time hours) Salary for internal employees will be awarded based on the UKRI Pay & Reward principles.

Appointment Term: Due to the nature of the role, we can accommodate several flexible options based around the successful candidates’ preferences and current professional commitments, including fixed-term, secondment, and permanent contract as well as hybrid working arrangements. The minimum commitment duration is 36 months and minimum hours required is 0.8 FTE (Full FTE 37 hours) per week.

Location: Based in Swindon with frequent travel to London and significant travel opportunities to connect with researchers nationwide

Grade: Band X

Closing Date: Sunday 2nd November 2025

Are you a visionary leader, ready to inspire change in the environmental community?

We are seeking a dynamic, creative environmental science research leader with standing in the profession who thrives on making a difference in the science community and turning complex challenges into opportunities. This isn't just another role — it's your chance to place cutting edge environmental science at the very heart of green growth and government priorities.

You'll bring:

·        Science Leadership across environmental domains with a track record of building bridges between disciplinary fields to unlock transformative research outcomes.

·        Research delivery experience drawn from universities, institutes, or research centres, where you can show credible, impactful results.

·        Entrepreneurial vision that sees challenges as catalysts for innovation

·        A collaborative and engaged mindset as you join our new executive team and exemplify credible, empathetic, and effective leadership working with diverse partners.

Your impact:

·        Strategic influence with environmental science as its foundation

·        National presence as the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) authoritative voice and senior liaison across the UK's research ecosystem

·        Direct engagement across university and national research organisations 

·        Leading role in delivering research that will define the nation's environmental future under NERC’s Forward Look

As Director of Research and Innovation you will play a key leadership role at the heart of the executive team and build an exciting new agenda under the NERC Forward Look, delivering innovative solutions for the economy and for society over the next decade. The role has direct responsibility for NERC budget lines delivering curiosity-driven research, talent and skills funding, and strategic research programmes, ensuring that outcomes align with our Forward Look, UKRI’s priorities, and that NERC keeps pace with evolving science needs and changing technological and computational capabilities. It will be important to seek out opportunities to create funding partnerships with others, including other research councils, government departments, and international funding agencies where appropriate, particularly across domains with key intersections with environment, such as health, energy, and resilience in urban and engineered environments. You will need to command esteem and pro-actively engage across NERC’s science community, both to keep pace with their insights on new developments and to communicate NERC’s agenda, particularly to senior leaders.

You will join a strongly collaborative executive team, working closely with NERC’s Directors to ensure that research priorities overall are coherent and optimised across all research programmes, including those in the NERC Centres that receive ‘national capability’ funding to deliver long-term, large-scale research and infrastructure platforms for the science community.

Key Responsibilities:

Reporting directly to the NERC Deputy Executive Chair you will have responsibility for:

·        Delivery of over £100M per year of UKRI’s research and talent budget, programme evaluation, and direct responsibility for the leadership management and development of c50 staff.

·        Leading the development of research and innovation priorities for the whole of NERC

·        Leading on the inception, direction and timely delivery of well-designed curiosity-driven research, talent and skills funding, and strategic research programmes.

·        Working collaboratively across UKRI to align with UKRI policies and to inform and shape the latest thinking to continually improve the efficiency and effectiveness of science funding.

·        Exploiting your NERC domain expertise to seek out opportunities for collaborations that leverage partnerships including international collaboration.

·        NERC Community Liaison: Being a critical point of contact across the NERC community, winning trust and confidence at senior level to pick up the latest intelligence on scientific developments, to ensure the smooth running of NERC’s funding programmes, and to empower Head Office with scientific insights.

·        Stakeholder relationships: Liaison across relevant UKRI teams (including international, commercialisation, and Innovate UK) and with external partners including business and industry to ensure that NERC delivers the best possible outcomes against our priorities. You will act as a senior ambassador for NERC and ensure that NERC and its community provide a strong, unified voice for science, research, and innovation.

·        Contributing to the corporate management of NERC as a member of an inclusive and collegiate executive team and representing NERC and UKRI at senior level to a wide range of communities and stakeholders, leading through change as responsibilities continue to evolve.

·        Participating in the council’s evaluation and planning activities.

·        Championing equality, diversity and inclusion

Person Specification:

• Qualified at PhD level with a strong personal record of scientific achievement and a deep understanding of environmental science and its applications sufficient to gain the confidence of the scientific community.
• A sustained first-class track record of senior roles relevant to the environmental sciences, with experience leading and managing major scientific initiatives and programmes.
• Senior level experience of stakeholder management including the ability to negotiate with partners to build effective relationships for mutual benefit, reconcile potentially conflicting interests and influence others not in your management line to achieve desired outcomes.
• Experience of portfolio budget management, profiling spend against well-defined delivery criteria and outcomes.
• Demonstrable experience of effective management of staff performance and development.

For more information and to apply for the role please click 'apply' to visit our careers site.

Application Guidance:

How to evidence the criteria:

You are encouraged to use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) in the cover letter to evidence your ability to meet the ‘person specification’ criteria in the job description. For examples of the STAR method, please visit: The STAR method | National Careers Service’.

Please ensure your CV and cover letter are no longer than two A4 pages each, using a minimum font size of 11. Once submitted, your application cannot be edited via your careers website; however, if you encounter any issues or need to update your documents, please contact us at SeniorRecruitment@ukri.org

Other information

If you'd like to have an informal chat about the role before applying, you're welcome to get in touch with us at seniorrecruitment@ukri.org

Benefits

We recognise and value our employees as individuals and aim to provide a favourable pay and rewards package! We are committed to supporting employees’ development and promote a culture of continuous learning! A list of benefits below;

·        An outstanding defined benefit pension scheme

·        30 days’ annual leave in addition to 10.5 public and privilege days (full time equivalent)

·        Employee discounts and offers on retail and leisure activities

·        Employee assistance programme, providing confidential help and advice

·        Flexible working options

Please click here for more details Benefits of Working for UKRI