Job ID: 1132

Closing Date: 1st July 2025

The University of Sheffield is a remarkable place to work. Our people are at the heart of everything we do. Their diverse backgrounds, abilities and beliefs make Sheffield a world-class university.

We offer a fantastic range of benefits including a highly competitive annual leave entitlement (with the ability to purchase more), a generous pensions scheme, flexible working opportunities, a commitment to your development and wellbeing, a wide range of retail discounts, and much more.

Overview

Data Connect is a service within the Research and Innovation IT team in the University’s IT Department. It is focused on supporting researchers to get access to health and social care data for research projects. It is a strategically important service in the University that enables research that will directly impact on the quality and length of people’s lives.

We are seeking a Research Project Manager to support the Data Connect team, ensuring seamless project execution from planning to delivery. Including projects to support researchers and larger projects for strategic partners such as the Yorkshire and Humber Secure Data Environment and the Integrated Care Board. You’ll work closely with the Senior Research Project Manager and Data Technical Lead whilst acting as a key point of contact for Principal Investigators and lead researchers, guiding projects from inception to completion.

In this pivotal role, you’ll contribute to the full project lifecycle, proactively identifying and addressing obstacles to optimise team efficiency.   Your responsibilities will encompass planning, scheduling, and delivering engagement, governance, and data management activities. You’ll facilitate agile workflows, including daily stand-ups, backlog refinement, sprint planning, and retrospectives, to drive continuous improvement.

The Research Project Manager will work closely with other team members, particularly the Senior Research Project Manager, communicating openly about the work pipeline and opportunities, progress on current projects, highlighting risks and issues and collaborating to resolve them. They work, along with other team members, to communicate clearly with Data Connect service users to set project scope, timelines and delivery expectations.

Main duties and responsibilities

The Research Project Manager is responsible for the current active project activity including:

• Working with researchers  to define project workflows, project scopes and timelines and ensuring alignment with stakeholder expectations.
• Providing support to a range of programmes, including the Yorkshire & Humber Secure Data Environment
• Working with the Data Connect team to break down defined research projects into manageable tasks and create sprint plans.
• Contributing to the improvement of service design, by providing feedback and insights based on user interactions and project experiences.
• Maintaining and optimizing JIRA board workflows, ensuring efficient project tracking and task management.
• Working closely with the Senior Research Project Manager to manage team capacity and resource allocation across all active projects.
• Facilitating effective communication among team members, ensuring clear and consistent information flow.
• Creating and maintaining comprehensive project documentation, including project plans, reports, and meeting minutes.
• Identifying and implementing process improvements, streamlining workflows and increasing efficiency.
• Implementing and facilitating agile methodologies, including sprints, stand-ups, and retrospectives.
• Collaborating with the Data Management team to oversee the collection, storage, and analysis of research data, and assisting in resolving workstream obstacles.
• Carry out other duties, commensurate with the grade and remit of the post.

We are a research university with a global reputation for excellence. Our ideas and expertise change the world for the better, making a real difference to society. We know that when people come together with different views, approaches and insights it can lead to richer, more creative and innovative teaching and research and the highest levels of student experience. Our University Vision (www.sheffield.ac.uk/vision) outlines our commitment to building a diverse community of staff and students that recognises and values the abilities, backgrounds, beliefs and ways of living for everyone.