Strategic Engagement Lead - 3 roles (18 month fixed term contract. We have office locations in Cambridge, Leeds & London)
Company Description
Genomics England partners with the NHS to provide whole genome sequencing diagnostics. We also equip researchers to find the causes of disease and develop new treatments – with patients and participants at the heart of it all.
Our mission is to continue refining, scaling, and evolving our ability to enable others to deliver genomic healthcare and conduct genomic research.
We are accelerating our impact and working with patients, doctors, scientists, government and industry to improve genomic testing, and help researchers access the health data and technology they need to make new medical discoveries and create more effective, targeted medicines for everybody.
We are looking for 3 Strategic Engagement Leads to join us.
Overall job purpose
The Strategic Engagement Leads will build and maintain strong, collaborative relationships with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders to take an engagement led approach to shaping and delivering Genomics England's strategic objectives and to build Genomics England's reputation for equitable engagement in the field of genomic science. This role is key to ensuring Genomics England listens and responds to the perspectives of different audiences to shape and deliver its strategic objectives and maintain trust in its work.
The roles will lead on engagement for one of Genomics England's strategic programmes, either:
- the Generation Study: a research study to test the efficacy of whole genome sequencing to identify, diagnose and treat severe childhood diseases earlier by sequencing the genomes of up to 100,000 newborn babies born in England. This as an important step towards more preventative healthcare, with genomics a key part of that through the lifetime, or
- the Adult Population Genomics Pilot: in partnership with the NHS, we are leading public engagement, design, and proof-of-concept work to explore how genomics can be used pre-emptively, helping to personalise drug treatments and predict the risk of conditions like cancer and cardiovascular disease.
The postholders will also work flexibly to meet the engagement needs of other strategic priorities across Genomics England.
Job Description
- Lead the development of Genomics England's engagement strategy to achieve its strategic initiatives, working closely with internal stakeholders to.
- Understand the different audiences to engage and set engagement objectives for those audiences;
- Establish methods to gather ongoing insight into their perspectives and to use this insight and evidence to shape engagement strategies and plans.
- Understand the changing engagement needs of Genomics England's strategic initiatives at different stages of their lifecycles to adapt and evolve engagement strategies and plans.
- Work closely with the Ethics team to ensure insights from engagement research feed into ethics advice, planning and implementation into programmes, and that engagement approaches are ethically informed.
- Demonstrate Genomics England's commitment to embedding equity within its approach to engagement so that our approach is inclusive of seldom heard communities, ensuring that we promote equitable access and outcomes for genomic healthcare and research.
- Integrate engagement insights into the development and delivery of strategic initiatives to influence the approach taken and ensure that programmes are aligned with public, healthcare professional and stakeholder expectations.
- Working with Service Owners and programme leads for specific strategic initiatives:
- Design and deliver major programmes of engagement with different audiences and lead the commissioning of expert, external support to deliver these as required
- Secure the necessary approvals and funding for engagement projects and programmes. Manage external suppliers to deliver agreed outputs which meet company objectives to time and within budget.
- Understand stakeholder engagement requirements and oversee effective stakeholder engagement throughout the initiatives' design and delivery, managing any associated governance structures.
- Collaborate with stakeholders, including NHS partners, industry, academia, and patient advocacy groups, to shape the programme’s direction.
- Develop approaches to measuring the impact of engagement and report on progress with engagement plans to the relevant governance board for each strategic initiative.
- For specific strategic initiatives manage the design and delivery of Genomics England's events and involvement in external engagement events.
- Ensure that engagement plans for specific strategic initiatives fit within, learn from and shape Genomics England's cross cutting engagement strategy for different audiences.
- As required, provide expert advice to develop and deliver engagement strategies and plans to meet the evolving requirements of Genomics England.
- Provide expert, authoritative engagement advice to the Executive Leadership Team and Genomics England colleagues.
- Proactively build and maintain strong, collaborative relationships across a complex stakeholder environment, demonstrating Genomics England's expertise in and commitment to engagement.
- Know and understand the meaning behind our virtues and leadership behaviours and embody them in all aspects of your role.
Qualifications
We are not looking for specific qualifications for this role. We are looking for proven experience leading large-scale, complex engagement programmes with diverse audiences including the public, government, healthcare, research, and industry audiences.
Additional Information
Closing date for applications: Friday 6 June at 12pm midday.
Salary from: £65,500
Being an integral part of such a meaningful mission is extremely rewarding in itself, but in order to support our people, we’re continually improving our benefits package. We pride ourselves on investing in our people and supporting them to achieve their career goals, as well as offering a benefits package including:
- Generous Leave: 30 days’ holiday plus bank holidays, additional leave for long service, and the option to apply for up to 30 days of remote working abroad annually (approval required).
- Family-Friendly: Blended working arrangements, flexible working, enhanced maternity, paternity and shared parental leave benefits.
- Pension & Financial: Defined contribution pension (Genomics England double-matches up to 10%, however you can contribute more if you wish), Life Assurance (3x salary), and a Give As You Earn scheme.
- Learning & Development: Individual learning budgets, support for training and certifications, and reimbursement for one annual professional subscription (approval required).
- Recognition & Rewards: Employee recognition programme and referral scheme.
- Health & Wellbeing: Subsidised gym membership, a free Headspace account, and access to an Employee Assistance Programme, eye tests, flu jabs.
Equal opportunities and our commitment to a diverse and inclusive workplace
Genomics England is actively committed to providing and supporting an inclusive environment that promotes equity, diversity and inclusion best practice both within our community and in any other area where we have influence. We are proud of our diverse community where everyone can come to work and feel welcomed and treated with respect regardless of any disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, or social background.
Genomics England’s policies of non-discrimination and equity and will be applied fairly to all people, regardless of age, disability, gender identity or reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, being pregnant or recently becoming a parent, race, religion or beliefs, sex or sexual orientation, length of service, whether full or part-time or employed under a permanent or a fixed-term contract or any other relevant factor.
Genomics England does not tolerate any form of discrimination, harassment, victimisation or bullying at work. Such behaviour is contrary to our virtues, undermines our mission and core values and diminishes the dignity, respect and integrity of all parties. Our People policies outline our commitment to inclusivity.
We aim to remove barriers in our recruitment processes and to be flexible with our interview processes. Should you require any adjustments that may help you to fully participate in the recruitment process, we encourage you to discuss this with us.
Blended working model
Genomics England operates a blended working model as we know our people appreciate the flexibility that hybrid working can bring. We expect most people to come into the office a minimum of 2 times each month. However, this will vary according to role and will be agreed with your team leader. There is no expectation that people will return to the office full time unless they want to, however, some of our roles require full time on site attendance e.g., lab teams, reception team.
Our teams and squads have, and will continue to reflect on what works best for them to work together successfully and have the freedom to design working patterns to suit, beyond the minimum. Our office locations are: Canary Wharf, Cambridge and Leeds.
Onboarding background checks
As part of our recruitment process, all successful candidates are subject to a Standard Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. We therefore require applicants to disclose any previous offences at point of application, as some unspent convictions may mean we are unable to proceed with your application due to the nature of our work in healthcare.
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For more information about the organisation please view our Genomics England Insights and Welcome Pack.
