A Research Impact Officer is sought to lead on the improvement of systems and processes that support the development, dissemination and monitoring of research impact, with the aim of ensuring maximum impact from these activities, whilst also making an effective contribution to the wider development of research within an organization.

The Impact Officer will work closely with the Digital and Support Services Executive and the Business Development Unit, ensuring outputs are aligned to Programme Offerings and Ecosystem Development: providing informative content for proposal developments, programme impact determination and ecosystem thought leadership.

This role requires an incumbent who is passionate about the intricacies of business, innovation world and the role of entrepreneurship and its impact on our society. The individual should also enjoy turning data into information and utilizing it for entrepreneurial impact.

The Responsibilities of the Research Impact Officer is as follows:

• Identify and introduce systems or tools to enhance data collection and analysis, working together with the Digital Development team
•  Initiate and contribute to preparing and writing proposals and applications to external bodies for research grants/funding and sponsorship purposes.
• Compile, collect and review business innovation surveys for various departments within the organisation; ensuring completeness and accuracy of information; following up with subjects to resolve problems or clarify issues with data collected
• Create benchmarking and impact reports with collected data to support business development and partner programmes
• Coordinate the analysis, quality control, and data management and prepare findings for publication as part of programme impact assessment
•  Develop assessment and evaluation tools for assessing incubation and entrepreneurship activities and performance
• Review current and emerging trends on impact across the entrepreneurship space and draft sector specific incubation and entrepreneurship related reports
•  Identify potential research topics in accordance with company strategic objectives
• Support in creating content for other business lines
• Use experience, initiative and skills to identify and develop areas of research and knowledge exchange/impact and impact case studies and, in collaboration with colleagues, develop mechanisms for the effective quantitative and qualitative recording of these.

Knowledge, skills, and abilities:

The ideal candidate should be an individual who is substantially skilled in data collection, analysis and report writing, with:

• Experience of the production of materials designed to communicate research and knowledge exchange outcomes to the public
• Specific knowledge of research techniques, processes and methodologies and the research impact agenda
• Use of monitoring and evaluation techniques
• Very good understanding of qualitative, quantitative methods, desk research and analysis
• Ability to write clearly and succinctly
• Capacity to produce accessible and engaging research deliverables and communicating research findings to a wide range of audience
•  High proficiency in the MS Office Suite
•  Excellent command of written and spoken English, other languages are considered an advantage.
•  Ability managing multiple relationships and managing various streams of work simultaneously
• Ability to present complex concepts

Education and Skills Requirements:

•  Relevant graduate degree in the areas of economics, international development, business administration (Honours and Masters Level will be an advantage)
• 2-3 years of work experience in research, monitoring and policy studies in consultancy, membership organisation, public body or academia