Project Coordinator

Salary: £31,236 to £32,080 with progression to £34,610 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: 04 November 2025

The Role

This is an exciting opportunity to join the world-renowned John Walton Muscular Dystrophy Research Centre (JWMDRC) at Newcastle University working across the Adult SMA REACH project and UK SMA Patient Registry. Adult SMA REACH is an NHS sponsored academic observational study, collecting clinical data and outcome measures from adult Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) patients.

You will work across the UK SMA Patient Registry and Adult SMA REACH project, acting as the interface between both initiatives to support data sharing between the UK SMA Patient Registry and SMA REACH neuromuscular clinics. You will be working within a team who manage a portfolio of neuromuscular disease registries (longitudinal databases collecting genetic and clinical information on affected individuals) and engaging with a variety of stakeholders including patient organisations, academia and industry.

You will be responsible for data quality and completeness, communications, and promotion of both the UK SMA Patient Registry and Adult SMA REACH project for use in translational research. You will also provide administrative support to other relevant projects as required.

Please reach out to Jess Page at Jess.Page@newcastle.ac.uk if you have any questions. 

The role is fixed term for 19 months.

Please note that if you are successful to this role, you will require a Research Passport before you can commence in the role.

Key Accountabilities

• Act as the main point of contact for Adult SMA REACH and UK SMA Patient Registry projects
• Take overall responsibility for coordinating both projects
• Conduct proactive outreach in patient, clinical and research communities to raise awareness of the projects and increase recruitment
• Manage project governance by handling ethics approvals, coordinating and chairing steering committee meetings, recording minutes, and distributing updates to members
• Communicate with SMA REACH clinic sites on behalf of the UK SMA Patient Registry with regards to patient registration and completion of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) in the online Patient Registry
• Contribute to regular meetings of the JWMDRC registries team and other associated projects, to share expertise and best practise
• Work collaboratively and liaise effectively with internal and external partners including the JWMDRC staff involved in the projects, the external collaborators and the funders of both projects
• Work with the other members of the staff in preparing and managing the content of the projects websites, training courses and Newsletter to ensure the most up to date information is available for stakeholders
• Proactively and independently provide suggestions and advise on both projects related issues relevant to the programme of work
• Collate, clean, and analyse data to support annual report writing, publications, grant applications, newsletters and other outputs as required
• To provide administrative support when needed and directed by line manager
• Take responsibility for identifying own learning needs
• Other duties include occasional national and international travel as required

The Person 

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Experience of communicating effectively with colleagues and stakeholders from different backgrounds and levels of expertise
• Confidence speaking to large groups on-line and in person
• Excellent, accurate writing skills
• Good interpersonal and negotiation skills
• Excellent organisational skills and the ability to prioritise workload to meet demanding targets and deadlines
• Demonstrable competence in planning, project and task management
• Ability to evaluate effectiveness of processes and suggest/implement improvements
• Experience in developing/implementing effective systems to organise project tasks and track progress
• Competent in the use of Microsoft Office, web editing software and online learning management systems
• Proven ability to work independently on agreed tasks

Attributes and Behaviour

• Ability to work to tight deadlines with a high level of accuracy
• Excellent problem solving with ability to use own initiative
• Highly organised with excellent attention to detail
• Reliable and professional always
• Team player, able to develop and maintain productive working relationships with multi-disciplinary colleagues and project members
• A high level of sensitivity and professionalism, especially in communicating with rare disease patients and their families
• Flexible approach to working patterns which will include working outside of normal office hours from time to time and some national and international travel

Qualifications

• Degree qualification in a relevant or transferable discipline

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: 28662