Job Purpose

As part of the Research Computing as a Service (RCaaS) team within Information Services the Research Data Manager will provide leadership and support related to creation, management and curation of research data within the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences (MVLS).

An experienced data management professional, the postholder will be expected to establish and maintain a clear understanding of the scale, complexity and characteristics of research data within the College, including anticipated future growth.

They will translate this understanding into clearly defined service requirements, building cases for investment in critical data services and overseeing their implementation and facilitating their adoption. They will partner closely with Information Services colleagues – including technical and information professionals – to enhance services and mitigate risk. They will provide practical, disciplinary-specialist support for researchers facing issues of data scale, complexity and sensitivity – enhancing the ways that data are created and managed to make them more discoverable, accessible and usable. The postholder will complement and contribute to activities of the University’s Research Data Management team which offers a range of advice, training and related services, but lacks resources to deliver practical, disciplinarily attuned support for researchers.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

1. Undertake systematic data audit exercises to maintain understanding of scale and nature of MVLS research data, translating to technical requirements.

2. Develop and refine a strategic vision, roadmap and operational planning for the delivery of secure data management services within MVLS, working with relevant research, technology and information stakeholders within the University and signposting existing support provisions where applicable.

3. Establish and maintain metrics and produce concise reporting that demonstrates College data management maturity.

4. Promote and support the implementation of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles within MVLS through signposting and where necessary development of relevant policy, process and research data services.

5. Provide College-wide leadership as well as hands-on technical guidance and support for management of clinical and fundamental research data throughout the whole research life cycle, supporting areas including but not limited to electronic lab notebooks, anonymisation and data protocols.

6. Offer specialist advice and input to the development of research funding proposals featuring data creation, collection and management, mitigating associated risks, maximising data value, utility and reusability and exploring opportunities for cost recovery associated with data services.

7. Develop and contribute to internal business cases aimed at generating investment in services and infrastructure to facilitate the management and use of research data within MVLS.

8. Provide strategic and operational leadership to the team and lead contact for services associated with research data collection and management, prioritising specialist areas such as Trusted Research Environments for the processing of sensitive data.

9. Work closely with strategic partners within Information Services and other Colleges to ensure the specifications of any common data services are fully informed by MVLS requirements.

10. Establish close working relationships with local data champions and academic and clinical research colleagues within the College to maintain an understanding of data needs and propagate knowledge of best practice solutions, supporting adoption of appropriate data services.

11. Engage proactively with researchers and other stakeholders to ensure adequate data infrastructure provision and strategic consideration to satisfy requirements within key areas, such as adoption of AI and spatial biology.

12. Leading contribution towards shaping culture and capability within MVLS related to the management and use of data by specifying and delivering capacity and community building activities.

Knowledge, Qualifications, Skills, Experience

Knowledge / Qualifications

Essential:

A1 Ability to demonstrate the competencies required to undertake the duties associated with this level of post having acquired the necessary professional knowledge and management skills in a similar or number of different specialist roles.  Or: Scottish Credit and Qualification Framework level 9, 10 or 11 (Ordinary/Honours Degree, Post Graduate Qualification), or equivalent including being professionally qualified in relevant discipline, with a broad range of professional experience in management role(s).

A2   Excellent and proven analytical and technical understanding of relevant data management systems and approaches including local and cloud databases and storage platforms, database design, data modelling and data warehousing and electronic lab notebooks, information identifiers and metadata standards.

A3   Comprehensive knowledge of relevant legislative and regulatory requirements related to the processing of health and life sciences data.

A4   Knowledge of data management principles and solutions associated with the creation, storage and provision of access to wide ranging health data including but not limited to medical imaging data, multi-omics datasets, textual health records and social data, as well as a range of commercial-in-confidence information.

A5   Academic subject specialism in one or more relevant disciplines within the University of Glasgow’s College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences.

A6   Thorough knowledge of technical characteristics and standard operating procedures of trusted research environments.

A7   Familiarity with the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles to enhance data usability and sharing.

Desirable:

B1   Knowledge of large language models, machine learning and AI within the context of health research.

B2   Knowledge of data management requirements for delivering spatial biology enterprise solutions and workflows.

Skills

Essential:

C1   Excellent technical skills in documenting research data and creating metadata to facilitate data discovery and reuse.

C2   Excellent team leadership, planning, organisation, time and workload management skills with proven ability to prioritise demands and meet deadlines, with an understanding of the importance of equality and diversity and a commitment to help create an inclusive culture.

C3   Highly effective written and verbal communication skills including authoring of technical reports and aptitude for delivering presentations or leading training or education sessions.

C4   Ability to work independently including planning and delivery, and to collaborate proactively as part of a team, including taking a leading role.

C5   Ability to rapidly comprehend new complex research requirements and quickly establish an understanding of feasibility and associated resourcing requirements, offering credible and robust technical solutions.

C6   Ability to quickly evaluate new technical opportunities and their suitability for deployment in data management workflows in support of research goals.

C7   Excellent analytical skills with confidence to challenge and continuously improve.

C8   Ability to build and maintain broad network of relationships with diverse stakeholder groups including research PIs, IT and information professionals and management and admin teams.

C9   Display role model behaviours with the ability to inspire and motivate operational colleagues to deliver service excellence.

Desirable:

D1   Expertise in designing and managing Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) workflows for data migration and warehousing.

D2   Data integration and analysis skills.

Experience

Essential:

E1    Practical experience in providing technical data management and leadership for one or more research or clinical projects, ensuring successful outcomes.

E2    Experience of collaborating with research colleagues within health and life sciences disciplines to understand data requirements and deliver appropriate technical and process driven solutions.

E3    Significant experience in making or assessing a formal case for new projects or activity (such as authoring or evaluating research proposals or business cases).

E4    Substantial experience of designing data strategy, policies, processes and workflows based on research and clinical requirements.

E5    Experience delivering a security frameworks that protects data quality, safeguards against unauthorised access and ensures compliance with relevant regulations.

Desirable:

F1    Experience in undertaking independent research.

F2    Experience delivering data management aspects of one or more trusted research environments.

Terms and Conditions

Salary will be Grade 8, £49,559 - £57,422 per annum.

This post is full time and  fixed term for 24 months from start date.

Closing Date: 23:45 23rd July 2025

The University of Glasgow has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK.  If you require a Skilled Worker visa to work in the UK, you will be required to meet the eligibility requirements of the visa route to be assigned a Certificate of Sponsorship.

Please note that this post may be eligible to be sponsored under the Skilled Worker visa route if tradeable points can be used under the Skilled Worker visa rules. For more information please visit: https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa.

As a valued member of our team, you can expect:

1 A warm welcoming and engaging organisational culture, where your talents are developed and nurtured, and success is celebrated and shared.

2 An excellent employment package with generous terms and conditions including 41 days of leave for full time staff, pension - pensions handbook https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/payandpensions/pensions/, benefits and discount packages.

3 A flexible approach to working.

4 A commitment to support your health and wellbeing, including a free 6-month UofG Sport membership for all new staff joining the University  https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/staff/healthwellbeing/.

We believe that we can only reach our full potential through the talents of all. Equality, diversity and inclusion are at the heart of our values. Applications are particularly welcome from across our communities and in particular people from the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community, and other protected characteristics who are under-represented within the University. Read more on how the University promotes and embeds all aspects of equality and diversity within our community https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/humanresources/equalitydiversity/.

We endorse the principles of Athena Swan https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/humanresources/equalitydiversity/athenaswan/ and hold bronze, silver and gold awards across the University.

We are investing in our organisation, and we will invest in you too. Please visit our website https://www.gla.ac.uk/explore/jobs/ for more information.