Research Futures Community Coordinator

Role: Research Futures Community Coordinator

Grade and Salary: Grade 7 (£37,694 - £47,389)

FTE and working pattern: Full-time, 35 hours weekly based at Edinburgh Campus

Holiday Entitlement: 33 days annual leave plus 9 buildings closed days (and Christmas Eve when it falls on a weekday)

You will build a thriving, welcoming community for our Postgraduate Researchers (PGRs) and Early Career Researchers (ECRs) across our global campuses. We take an enhancement-led approach to experience, built on partnership and collaboration with our PGR and ECR community. This role supports the University’s ambition for an exceptional student experience as part of Strategy 2035, by strengthening belonging, access to support, and consistency across campuses.

You will create regular opportunities for people to connect, share experiences, and feel part of something bigger than their project. You will help deliver an integrated, holistic PGR/ECR experience by coordinating community activity and communications across Schools, services, and campuses.

Your key priorities are simple and important:

• Belonging and community, so researchers feel connected and supported.
• Equity of experience across campuses and Schools.
• Awareness and uptake of support, so people can find help quickly and use it well.

You will run a consistent programme of events and communications that supports the researcher journey from arrival to next steps. You will also collaborate with Marketing, Recruitment, Admissions and Communications on external-facing engagement for both recruitment and reputation. Sometimes you will help deliver external events. Sometimes you will enable them by bringing the right voices, stories, and insight.

• Plan and deliver a year-round programme of community activity for PGRs and ECRs, including events, networks, online spaces and campaigns.
• Ensure clear and accessible routes into participation, including onboarding touchpoints and “what’s on / how to get involved” information.
• Strengthen belonging, peer support and engagement through connection-focused initiatives (e.g. buddy schemes, peer groups, communities of practice).
• Enable researchers to build networks, share experiences and develop meaningful connections across Schools, disciplines and campuses.
• Identify barriers to engagement and implement practical solutions to improve participation, accessibility and reach.
• Actively promote inclusive participation from underrepresented and marginalised groups, and design activity that addresses structural and cultural barriers (e.g. care experienced researchers, carers, disabled researchers, and international researchers)

• Map key stages of the researcher journey and coordinate targeted touch points that improve awareness, engagement and access to support.
• Work with colleagues across the University to ensure a consistent, equitable, and accessible experience for researchers.
• Coordinate activity that supports researchers through key transitions and milestones.
• Align activity across Schools and services to reduce duplication and improve coordination of support.

• Put in place accessible, low barrier mechanisms to gather researcher feedback (e.g. pulse surveys, focus groups, representative channels, including PRES where relevant).
• Create effective ways to hear and act on the researcher voice, enabling co-design and co-creation of community activity, and clearly demonstrating how feedback has informed decisions and improvements.
• Use feedback and data to inform priorities and improve researcher experience activity.
• Report on engagement and impact using clear, practical measures.

• Work with Marketing, Communications and Student Recruitment to promote researcher opportunities, activity and support.
• Develop and deliver clear communications across appropriate channels (e.g. email, web, Teams, social).
• Create and share content that platforms researcher voices and lived-experience (e.g. case studies, stories, testimonials).
• Contribute to applicant-facing activity (e.g. webinars, events, Q&A)…