JOB DESCRIPTION
1. Job Details Job title: Chancellor’s Fellow (Public Sector (‘Govtech’)) College: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences School(s): One of our Schools within the College Line manager: Head of School/Head of Subject Area
2. Job Purpose To undertake research and innovation in accordance with the University’s strategy in Data-Driven Innovation (DDI) across all sectors of the University’s endeavour. To progressively train in and contribute to teaching/skilling at scale in data sciences, notably employing on-line and blended learning environments. To gain skills in research-led innovation and industry engagement. To develop the skills and attributes required of a full member of the Academic Staff of the University.
3. Main Responsibilities The Fellow will be able to concentrate on research and innovation in the first instance, acquiring the full duties of a University Lecturer in Data-Driven Innovation (or a more senior academic position, where appropriate) across the period of the Fellowship. Approx. % of time
Undertake world-leading research and innovation working closely with the private, public ~80% initially and third sector in a data-enabled theme, with a focus on delivering high impact results Training and contributions to academic-industry engagement and innovation ~10% Training in and contributions to data sciences-related (on-line or blended) teaching and ~10% initially other teaching related to the Fellow’s discipline Progressively to increase teaching and innovation components across the Fellowship.
4. Planning and organising You will be required to plan and carry out research and/or innovation project(s), individually and collaboratively with others, apply for and win research funding. You will train in the skills required to lead research, to supervise and develop research staff and students, and to teach undergraduates and postgraduates online or on campus, as required by the Head of School in the context of the Edinburgh Futures Institute.
5. Problem solving You will need to win external research and innovation funding and provide appropriate projects for research students. You will be required to develop material for teaching/skilling and to deliver this.
6. Decision making There is a variety of day-to-day independent decisions that need to be made in undertaking a research programme, and decisions made jointly with colleagues in teaching and in academic administration.
7. Competencies (Knowledge, Skills and Experience Needed for the Job) Carry out world-leading research in data sciences, artificial intelligence and other data-driven areas relevant to the Fellow’s interests
PhD; evidence of very high quality research outputs at the forefront of the discipline (Essential) Evidence of research independence appropriate for appointment to Grade 8 or above (Essential) Clear evidence of leadership of research or innovation projects (Desirable) Significant further research or innovation experience (Desirable) Offer outstanding teaching within the discipline(s) relevant to the Fellow’s interests Willingness to be trained in and undertake teaching of data-enabled skills, notably online or in blended formats and at scale (Essential) Understanding of how to develop and offer research-led teaching (Essential) University teaching experience including lectures, tutorials, MOOCs (Desirable) Excellent engagement with innovation and industry in sector(s) relevant to the Fellow’s interests Good understanding of the environment, interactions with industry or the public sector, evidence of innovation or the application of the candidate’s research (Essential) Understanding of contemporary funding opportunities appropriate to the field (Essential) Evidence of ability to win funding for research and/or innovation (Desirable) Competence to undertake academic administration Familiarity with elementary financial planning, appropriate administrative behaviour, etc. (Essential) Experience of academic administration (Desirable)
8. Key Contacts/Relationships Head of University Institute, Head of School(s), Head of College Academic staff within the host School, University Institute and more widely Support staff within the host School, Institute and the wider university Other Chancellor’s Fellows within this cohort and in former cohorts (to support interdisciplinarity) Research students, postdoctoral colleagues, etc. Undergraduate and postgraduate students, including on-line learners Stakeholders in industry, third sectors and publics
9. Dimensions The number of staff and students reporting to the postholder, the financial dimensions of the role and the number of students affected by the post will vary between disciplines and grade of appointment and will increase during the course of the Fellowship.
10. Job context and any other relevant information The positions will be on the Academic Staff scale. Initial appointment will be on Grades 8, 9 or 10, depending on experience.
THE UNIVERSITY AND THE COLLEGE As a world-changing, world-leading university, we offer an exciting, positive, creative, challenging and rewarding place to work. We give you support, nurture your talent, develop and reward success and integrate academic, professional and personal career goals, as well as give your career the benefit of a great and distinguished reputation. In addition, our employees benefit from a competitive reward package and a wide range of staff benefits, which include generous holiday entitlement, a defined benefits pension scheme, staff discounts and much more.
As a member of staff, you will be part of one of the world's leading universities, with 20 Schools spread over 3 Colleges that offer more than 1600 undergraduate and 600 postgraduate programmes to over 35,000 students each year. Professional services are critical to this success as well as our world class teaching, research and student facilities. In fact, we are one of the top employers in Edinburgh, with over 13,500 people spread across a wide range of academic and supporting roles. The latest Research Excellence Framework highlighted our place at the forefront of international research. This adds to our international reputation for the quality of our teaching and our student experience excellence. The University is proud of its success with online teaching initiatives, with 2550 students currently studying its online distance learning postgraduate programmes, and a total to date of more than 2 million enrolments for Edinburgh MOOCs. The College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences The College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences is a large and diverse part of the University. Led by Vice-Principal Professor Dorothy Miell, it has 15,600 undergraduates, 5,700 taught postgraduates, 1,300 research students and more than 3,700 academic and professional services staff. The College incorporates 11 Schools (Business; Divinity; Economics; Edinburgh College of Art; Education; Health in Social Sciences; History, Classics and Archaeology; Law; Literatures, Languages and Cultures; Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences; and Social and Political Science), the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and the Centre for Open Learning. The College is located on multiple sites across Edinburgh, with the majority of Schools and College Offices based close to the central George Square area. The College, which is recognised as one of the world's leading centres for the arts, humanities and social sciences in research and teaching, has been growing and investing strongly in recent years. Research Excellence Framework 2014 (REF2014) The College operates at the highest levels of international quality across a very wide range of disciplines in the arts, humanities and social sciences and submitted the work of more than 750 staff to 23 Units of Assessment in the Research Excellence Framework 2014. The College achieved a superb result, combining a large-scale, broad and diverse submission with very high quality outcomes: 86% of its research impact and 76% of the overall quality profile were assessed as world-leading (4*) and internationally excellent (3*). Using the widely used Research Power index (which combines the submission's overall score for 3* and 4* work with the volume of staff submitted), 12 of the College’s Units were ranked within the top five in the UK, and 18 were ranked first in Scotland. With an assessment of more than 95% at 3* and 4*, we're particularly proud of the outstanding research environment we create for staff and research students.
EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY The culture of the University is open and diverse and we strive to replicate that in our appointments. As women and members of ethnic minorities are currently under-represented in posts at this level we particularly encourage applications from members of these groups. We are the proud holder of a prestigious Athena SWAN Silver Institution Award recognising our work in supporting the advancement of gender equality in academia. We are members of the Race Equality Charter and we are also Stonewall Scotland Diversity Champions, actively promoting LGBT equality. We have committed to broadening this round of fellowships to include opportunities for individuals looking to return to research after a career break for family, caring or health reasons. The University has a range of initiatives to support a family friendly working environment, including flexible working and childcare vouchers. See our University Initiatives website for further information.
REFERENCES These posts are subject to three satisfactory references being received, one of which should be from your current employer. Referees will be contacted before interview. When applying online, please note that the option to request that referees are not approached before interview is not available for these positions. Please select 'Yes' when given the option, unless exceptional circumstances apply.
APPLICATION PROCEDURE All applicants should apply online via the University of Edinburgh recruitment website (www.jobs.ed.ac.uk) and enclose a detailed CV and a one page outline of a proposed data-enabled research and/or innovation programme. The application process is quick and easy to follow, and you will receive e-mail confirmation of safe receipt of your application. The system allows you to save a partially completed application and return to complete and submit it once completed at a later date as long as it is before the closing date. We welcome applications from a wide variety of disciplines and research areas relevant to our thematic areas. Please note that if you are interested in more than one theme the system will only allow you to make one application per theme. The systems does allow you to copy a previous application and make any amendments necessary. If you are unable to complete an application online, please contact Human Resources Business Systems +44 (0)131 650 8126 to make alternative arrangements for submitting your application. General advice may be obtained by emailing [email protected] or specific details may be obtained from the appropriate University Institute as detailed below. Please submit your application by 5pm (GMT) on 12th March 2018
ELIGIBILITY TO WORK In accordance with the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 the University of Edinburgh, as an employer, has a legal responsibility to prevent illegal working and therefore must check that all employees are entitled to work in the United Kingdom (UK). To do so, the University of Edinburgh requires to see original documents evidencing right to work in the UK before commencement of employment and this is normally carried out at interview. Details will be provided in any letter of invitation to interview. For further information on eligibility to work please visit our Eligibility to Work webpage. If you are from outside the EEA and not currently eligible to work in the UK, there are visa routes that may be available to you, for example: 1. Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent): If you are an academic in the field of sciences; humanities; engineering; medicine; digital technology; or the arts, it may be possible for you to apply for a Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) visa. This route requires you to apply to be endorsed as an internationally recognised leader or emerging leader in your particular field by a designated competent body (Arts Council England, British Academy, Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal Society, Tech City UK). However, if you are applying for a senior academic role, eg Professor/Reader there is an accelerated route to endorsement. 2. Tier 2: The University is a UKVI licensed sponsor and is able to issue a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) to successful candidates who are offered highly skilled roles and meet the eligibility criteria. The CoS enables candidates to apply for a Tier 2 (general visa). Further information about whether you require a visa and other visa routes can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa The University reserves the right to vary the candidate information or make no appointment at all. Neither in part, nor in whole does this information form part of any contract between the University and any individual.
New University Institutes in Data-Driven Innovation The University of Edinburgh has initiated several new interdisciplinary ‘University Institutes’. These cross-College entities are the Bayes Centre, Edinburgh Futures Institute, the Usher Institute, the Robotarium (with Heriot Watt) and the Easter Bush (‘AgriTech’ initiative) campus. All are underpinned by major investment in a world class data infrastructure which expands the UK’s National supercomputer facility managed by Edinburgh Parallel Computer Centre (EPCC)’s capabilities along with core UoE IT infrastructure. These ‘projects’ together act to deliver City Deal’s overall programme of DDI activities.
Edinburgh Futures Institute The Institute will spark new connections, internally and externally, to bring together people and organisations from across the University and beyond. It will be where our world class interdisciplinary expertise in social and data science, the arts, and humanities meets the external organisations that are tackling society’s most pressing needs.
Through teaching, research and engagement, a key part of our mission is to interrogate how data creates disorder and opportunities within the economy, creative industries and policy. Only Edinburgh – as a University and a city – can do this. It is home to a major international financial centre and the world’s biggest arts festival. It is a global leader in public policy expertise and is the UK’s foremost centre for data science and artificial intelligence. We will assemble experts who can tackle issues from different and unconventional perspectives, gathering many hands to untangle the world’s knottiest problems. Our academics will share ideas and embark upon joint projects with unparalleled depth and ease. We will develop new research and co-designed teaching programmes that will respond to the world’s most pressing issues. We will create graduates that are creative, reasoned and thoughtful citizens with the ability to operate amid disruption, difference and volatility. They will not be bound by seeing the world through a single perspective, but will understand how different institutions work and intersect. Upon launch, the Futures Institute will be a network across the University. In 2021 it will move into its permanent home at the heart of the University in the refurbished Old Royal Infirmary. For further information visit https://efi.ed.ac.uk/
Bayes Centre The Bayes Centre is a hub designed to foster data-driven innovation within and beyond the University of Edinburgh. It is a new programme of activity, capitalising on existing strengths across the University. It will be housed in a new building from 2018. The core mission for the Bayes Centre is to excel in technology which powers the interaction of people, data and systems, and to create significant positive impact from talent and ideas. The mission is pursued in terms of five themes for data driven innovation: 1. Talent: Attract and sustain a talent pool for data driven innovation, by nurturing knowledgeable, responsible, and agile students and staff, and by encouraging skills development more broadly. 2. Entrepreneurship: Amplify the opportunities for entrepreneurs to work across all sectors, by providing targeted support, attracting investment, and encouraging partnerships among teams of data scientists, researchers, engineers, and designers. 3. Research: Enhance the City Region as a pre-eminent data science research location, by strongly connecting the talent pool to the research base, and by seeding interdisciplinary data-driven research and engineering 4. Datasets: Demonstrate the value of data assets, by providing the expertise and tools that put privacy, security and trust at the heart of data driven innovation 5. Adoption: Accelerate the adoption of data driven innovation by championing new partnerships with local and global companies and agencies. For more information visit https://www.ed.ac.uk/bayes
The Usher Institute The Usher Institute is a high-energy, interdisciplinary environment dedicated to improving the health of individuals and populations locally and globally through research, innovation, knowledge exchange and education. The institute is currently directed by Professor Aziz Sheikh, and sits within the Edinburgh Medical School in the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Working with partners across the NHS, policymakers, industry partners and the public is central to the highly collaborative ethos of the Usher Institute. Three core research centres in Global Health, Medical Informatics and Population Health Sciences are at the heart of the Usher Institute, ensuring it boasts a truly interdisciplinary environment. The Edinburgh Clinical Trials Unit sits with the Centre for Population Health Sciences. There are strong interactions and affiliated academics with the MRC Institute for Genetics and Molecular Medicine – a centre of excellence in the use of genetic and genomic data in biomedicine.
Around 300 researchers and support staff with expertise in a varied range of methodologies and topics contribute to world-leading research in global health, population health sciences and medical informatics. Our research expertise is at the heart of the excellent educational experience we offer in a wide range of taught and research postgraduate programmes, both online and on-campus, our programme of continuing professional development and in our contribution to the undergraduate medical degree. For further information visit https://www.ed.ac.uk/usher/about-us
The National Robotarium in partnership with Heriot-Watt University The National Robotarium is a partnership between the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University. It aims to create the UK’s leading facilities for training, research and innovation enabling the practical application of robotics and autonomous systems. In new facilities within the Bayes Centre and at Heriot Watt’s Riccarton Campus, the Robotarium will lead the development of new technologies in the fields of subsea and hazardous environments, healthcare, additive manufacturing and asset integrity. Existing and future industrial needs will be met by accelerating the generation of knowledge and flow of robotics and autonomous systems technologies into the economy through targeted research and living laboratories as well as demonstrator and incubation facilities.
Easter Bush Easter Bush Campus is home to The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies which houses the Roslin Institute, a world-leading institute for animal science research. As part of the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. Easter Bush Campus has been recognised for delivering a first-class working and studying environment. Easter Bush is also home to the new Roslin Innovation Centre, the business location of choice for companies undertaking strategic, commercial and collaborative research in the Animal and Veterinary Sciences; ‘AgriTech’ and One Health industries. The building provides a space where people can communicate physically and intellectually, and provides a gathering space that allows meeting and interaction from across the Campus, whilst also serving as an information point for the public. The location of the Roslin Innovation Centre at the heart of the Campus allows for the natural development of business collaborators with laboratory and office space situated close to the science and clinical livestock expertise. For further information visit https://www.ed.ac.uk/easter-bush-campus