Senior Scientist, Scientific Secretariat to the JCVI in London

The United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is a system leader for health security, taking action internationally to strengthen global health security, providing trusted advice to government and the public, and reducing inequalities in the way different communities experience and are impacted by infectious disease, environmental hazards, and other threats to health. UKHSA’s remit is to protect the health of the nation from infectious diseases and other external threats to health.

As the nation’s expert national health security agency, UKHSA will:

• Prevent: anticipate threats to health and help build the nation’s readiness, defences and health security.
• Detect: use cutting-edge environmental and biological surveillance to proactively detect and monitor infectious diseases and threats to health.
• Analyse: use world-class science and data analytics to assess and continually monitor threats to health, identifying how best to control and mitigate the risks.
• Respond: take rapid, collaborative and effective actions nationally and locally to mitigate threats to health when they materialise.
• Lead: lead strong and sustainable global, national, regional and local partnerships designed to save lives, protect the nation from public health threats and reduce inequalities.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is a scientific expert advisory committee which provides advice and recommendations to HM Government on immunisation matters. The JCVI is supported by the JCVI scientific secretariat, who work within UKHSA. We are recruiting for two Senior Scientists with the secretariat: one permanent and one fixed-term contract.

As a Senior Scientist, you will provide scientific secretariat support for the work of the JCVI and its sub-committees, as well as other expert groups. You will have strong communication and organisational skills, a keen interest in immunisation and healthcare policy, and will be able to work with a variety of stakeholders across UKHSA and other government departments, as well as external stakeholders. Most importantly, you will be enthusiastic about immunisation and motivated to gain a deeper understanding of how vaccination programmes move from scientific evidence to policy, and then to implementation.

The key responsibilities and tasks of this role will be:

• Working closely with the chair and members of the JCVI to effectively plan the discussions of JCVI sub-committees, and with UKHSA consultants to ensure the smooth running of UKHSA expert groups.
• Producing papers of a scientific and/or technical nature in collaboration with UKHSA experts and JCVI members to support JCVI decision-making.
• Preparing agendas and meeting papers within agreed timetables.
• Organising and attending meetings, recording discussions, preparing minutes and following up actions arising from meetings.
• Supporting the chair and members to achieve the aims and objectives of the JCVI.
• Contributing to updates to the UKHSA publication “Immunisation Against Infectious Diseases”.
• Supervising administrative staff to ensure effective arrangements are made for meeting rooms, equipment, refreshments, travel and other requirements for JCVI meetings.

We pride ourselves as being an employer of choice, where Everyone Matters promoting equality of opportunity to actively encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce. UKHSA ethos is to be an inclusive organisation for all our staff and stakeholders. To create, nurture and sustain an inclusive culture, where differences drive innovative solutions to meet the needs of our workforce and wider communities.

This list is not exhaustive.

Essential criteria:

• Science degree (or equivalent qualification) in a relevant subject (e.g. biological sciences, immunology, microbiology).
• Experience of scientific administration and/or scientific committee management.
• Experience of writing scientific reports.
• Understanding of the epidemiology of vaccine preventable diseases, and the immune response to immunisation.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills with attention to detail and ability to tailor communications to the audience (expert and non-expert).
• Strong organisational and administrative skills, including ability to prioritise own work effectively and manage workstreams with contributions from a wide variety of stakeholders.
• Ability to analyse complex issues where material may be conflicting and drawn from multiple sources.
• Ability to produce descriptive epidemiology reports independently.
• Must be able to use initiative to decide relevant actions, and to make recommendations to manager, with the aim of improving deliverables and compliance to policies.
• Strategic thinking, including ability to anticipate and resolve problems before they arise, make decisions autonomously, when required, on difficult issues, working to tight and challenging deadlines.

Desirable criteria:

• Proven and relevant research on vaccines/infectious diseases.
• Knowledge of communicable disease surveillance.

Location: This role is an office-based role at Canary Wharf, London. Our core HQ offices are modern and newly refurbished with excellent city centre transport links and benefit from co-location with other government departments such as the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC). Please note hybrid working is not available for this role.

Benefits of working at UKHSA include:

• Generous annual leave: 26 days for the first 5 years of continuous service, 28 days after 5 years of continuous service, 32 days after 10 years of continuous service, plus public holidays and one privilege day for the King’s birthday.
• Access to a generous Defined Benefit pension scheme with employer contributions.
• Access to a cycle-to-work salary sacrifice scheme, season ticket advances and payroll giving.
• Access to a retail discounts and cashback site.
• Flexible working patterns (part-time, job-share, condensed hours).
• A generous maternity/paternity and adoption leave package.