Assistant Research Project Manager

Salary: £31,236 to £32,080 per annum

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 22 October 2025

The Role

We are growing our team and have an exciting opportunity for an Assistant Project Manager (APM) to join a vibrant group of research project managers (the FMS Project Management Team) in the Faculty of Medical Sciences.  You will have the opportunity to connect with the wider Project Manager Community across the Faculty of Medical Sciences, as well as have access to in-house training and relevant peer support.

The team provide professional project management support to the Faculty of Medical Sciences’ research portfolio, including complex milestone driven, multi-site and cross-disciplinary research projects.  They manage ~58 projects with a value in excess of £140m and include but not limited to observational studies, experimental medicine research, trials and research involving the development of devices, gene and other therapies.

You will be allocated research projects from the team’s portfolio and will provide assistance to the team, whilst working closely with investigators, collaborators, the research team, University Research Institutes and professional services staff to deliver the projects.  This includes ensuring progress against milestone and financial targets, highlighting and managing risks as appropriate, and in doing so becoming an integral part of the project team.

We are looking for self-starters with excellent interpersonal skills including the ability to communicate clearly and concisely in writing and verbally as well as excellent organisational and time management skills, together with a positive ‘can-do’ attitude.  You will have a good level of education up to ‘A’ level or equivalent with an excellent level of literacy and numeracy, and will have experience of project management.

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits, extensive learning opportunities, and a stimulating and attractive environment.  We are committed to:

• providing a healthy working environment and improving the quality of working lives for all colleagues;
• investing in our people;
• improving our systems and operations; and
• promoting a culture of innovation and aspiration

To support the delivery of the University's People Strategy by attracting and retaining the best people, we offer a fantastic range of rewards and benefits to our staff:

• 30 days annual leave, plus 4 closure days and 8 bank holidays (pro-rata for part time) and the option to purchase additional leave;
• Automatic enrolment into a pension scheme;
• Corporate and local discounts;
• Wellbeing resources and number of exclusive discounts on a selection of North East leisure attractions;
• A range of exclusive health, fitness and wellbeing discounts based across the City to colleagues;
• Reward and Recognition Schemes;
• Opportunities to work in a blended way

Interviews will be held on Wednesday 05 November 2025.

This post is available fixed term until 30 September 2027. For more information and an informal discussion, please contact Emma Burton emma.burton@ncl.ac.uk or Phil Mawson phil.mawson@ncl.ac.uk.

Key Accountabilities

• Act as the main point of contact for all parties involved in allocated projects on a day-to- day basis, communicating clearly with investigators, project teams, collaborators and stakeholders and University professional services staff
• Collate information to assist with monitoring project progress associated with the research; support research and clinical teams to achieve milestones within set timescales.  This may involve interaction with other organisations e.g. Universities or NHS Trusts
• Prepare detailed study/research timelines and milestones, monitoring progress on a continuous basis, with a clear understanding of any impact on the critical path
• Develop an understanding of clinical governance and good clinical practice (GCP) to facilitate the management of low risk clinical trials
• Ensure the early identification of potential risks to meeting required objectives and support the coordination of plans to recover the situation where possible, liaising with the project manager, the Investigator and research team as appropriate
• Assist with the management of project finances including: forecasting; liaison with the University’s Contract Financial Management Team to ensure financial transactions and reporting are managed in line with the contract; and holding regular meetings with the project manager and project leads to ensure effective budget management
• Organise regular project update meetings, maintaining appropriate communication with all stakeholders and ensuring actions are created in line with the project objectives/timeline.  Monitor agreed actions to ensure they are undertaken by those assigned responsibility
• Organise and contribute to project management groups as required to support the project e.g. Advisory Boards, Steering Groups, interdisciplinary working groups
• Develop an understanding of the scientific, regulatory and technical elements of the project in order to cross communicate between different work packages
• Assist the project manager in providing specialist advice, training and supervision of project staff
• Maintain records/reports to meet both internal and external regulatory requirements
• Contribute to the preparation for, and facilitation of, audits and/or inspections
• Take responsibility for identifying own learning needs, including identifying appropriate courses to ensure up to date knowledge in the funding streams available to support translational research, as well as developing an awareness of the regulations governing clinical research and research data
• Work as part of the Faculty Project Management team to develop common ways of working and promote the use of best practice in project management

The Person 

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Knowledge of project management methodology
• Knowledge of budgetary/financial processes
• Experience of working in a research environment
• Relevant project or people management experience in a research, scientific, project management, pharmaceutical or medical environment
• Working as part of a team providing effective support to senior staff
• Experience of working independently and delegating tasks
• Experience of planning and progressing work within general guidelines, using initiative and judgement without recourse to senior staff

Attributes and Behaviour

• Excellent interpersonal skills including the ability to communicate clearly and concisely in writing and verbally
• Ability to manage projects to defined deliverables and meet audit requirements
• Proven ability to work to deadlines, organise own workload and work independently
• Excellent organisational and time management skills
• Excellent financial management skills
• Attention to detail
• A positive and supportive attitude; ability to work flexibly and cooperatively with others
• Excellent IT skills, including competent use of Microsoft Office (specifically Excel and Access)
• A readiness to acquire new IT skills (e.g. maintaining and developing a website) and recognition of the importance of good quality data in research (i.e. data entry, data cleaning, etc.)
• Flexibility with respect to working hours
• Willingness to travel outside of the Newcastle area

Qualifications

• A good level of education up to A level or equivalent
• Excellent level of literacy and numeracy

Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.  As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution.

We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society.  We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent.  We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.

At Newcastle University we hold a silver Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality.  We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC.  We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role as part of the offer and interview scheme.

In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe. 

Requisition ID: 28585