Job details

Job title: Community Engagement Manager

Reporting to: Head of Community Engagement

Responsible for: One direct line report

Based: Our Head Office is based in London, but we have an agile working policy enabling people to work at another UK location up to 4 days/week. Permanent remote working in the UK is possible and we welcome applications from people based in other parts of the UK. 

Terms: Full time (35 hours/week), permanent. Requests for flexible working will be considered.

Salary: £34,424 – £45,448 per annum

Download the candidate pack for this role as a pdf

Role overview

The British Science Association's mission is to transform the diversity and inclusivity of science. We want more people, especially those from groups that are currently underrepresented in science, to feel that science is relevant to their lives. The BSA’s Community Engagement programmes focus on reaching people who are underrepresented in science and research.

The Community Engagement Manager will specialise in growing, diversifying, and supporting our community engagement programmes.

The role will develop, manage and deliver high quality programmes by supporting community organisers and community-researcher partnerships. This will include programmes focusing on community engagement with science and research, as well as participatory grant making.

This role would suit someone with an interest in public engagement with science and research and experience of community engagement, capacity building and partnership working.

Key responsibilities

The main responsibilities of this role are:

• Extend the BSA’s engagement with grassroot community organisations and communities underserved by science and research.
• Help to grow the BSA’s Community Engagement programmes portfolio and support the BSA’s Community Engagement Network.
• Enable and support community engagement with British Science Week, including managing the British Science Week Community Grant Scheme.
• Project manage existing and new programmes that develop and support community-researcher partnerships and/or enable community organisers to embed science engagement and research in their work. 
• Provide delivery support to the Community Led Research Pilot (CLRP).
• Provide capacity building and development support to our delivery partners and participants in our grant programmes to overcome challenges they may face in delivering their projects.
• Line manage a Community Engagement Officer and provide effective management across projects and programmes.
• Deliver against agreed budgets and timelines.
• Work with the Head of Community Engagement in line with the BSA’s 10-year strategy to:
  • increase opportunities for those underrepresented in science and research to engage with our programmes,
  • develop new partnerships to support new and ongoing grant and capacity building programmes to create positive impacts for communities,
  • increase community voice and representation in the science engagement, research and innovation sectors.

 In addition, the post-holder will be expected to:

• Support the Head of Community Engagement to proactively strengthen the organisation’s profile and reputation among external partners and stakeholders.
• Work closely with the Head of Community Engagement, other managers and teams (particularly The Ideas Fund) to develop new programmes and improve existing ones and share best practice in community engagement across the organisation and with the wider sector.
• Support with writing funding bids that lead to the growth of the community engagement portfolio.
• Seek meaningful feedback from the communities that will be affected by planned activities (e.g. underserved audiences).
• Other duties as reasonably required by the line manager.

Person Specification

Below is a summary of essential and desirable criteria needed for this role, as well as how we will assess a candidate’s suitability.

Essential criteria 

Criteria	CV or Cover letter	1st  interview	2nd interview
Experience of developing and delivering community programmes for underserved, seldom heard or disengaged audiences	Y	Y	Y
Experience of project and programme management, with the ability to manage multiple complex projects in parallel from start to finish	Y	Y	Y
Proven ability to support communities through capacity building, training and facilitation	Y	Y	Y
Experience of building and managing multiple stakeholder relationships (ideally with community organisations, research organisations and partners in the science engagement, research and innovation sector or similar)	Y	Y
Experience of managing budgets	Y	Y
Experience of line management and managing contractors/contractor relationships.	Y	Y
Strong attention to detail combined with the ability to see the bigger strategic picture	Y	Y
Strong interpersonal and communication skills that are matched to audiences, participants and partners		Y	Y
A self-starter, able to work on their own initiative and manage their own time effectively		Y

Desirable criteria

Criteria	CV or cover letter	1st Interview	2nd interview
Experience of working in the science engagement, research and innovation sector or similar	Y	Y
Experience of working in the community or voluntary sector	Y	Y
Experience of grant making including administering and evaluating grants	Y	Y
Track record of designing successful programmes or developing organisations that benefit disadvantaged or underrepresented groups or individuals	Y	Y
A passion for equality, diversity and inclusion and demonstrable ability to apply that to daily work of the role externally and internally at the BSA		Y

To apply

Please send a CV and covering letter (no more than two sides of A4) that summarises your interest in the role and details your ability to match the criteria.

Applications should be made via this link: https://recruit.smb.co.uk/vacancy.aspx?id=2sNUCUHnu8tYgNHV 

The closing date for applications is 23.59 on Sunday 6 October 2024.

First interviews are due to take place on w/c 21 October, likely Monday 21 and Wednesday 23 October.

Download the candidate pack for this role as a pdf.

You can also view a text-only version of the remaining pages of the recruitment pack here.

As part of the British Science Association’s commitment to being a Disability Confident employer, all disabled* applicants who meet the ‘essential criteria’ for this vacancy will be offered an interview under our guaranteed interview scheme.

If you wish to apply under the guaranteed interview scheme, you will be asked to indicate this when you submit your application by selecting ‘yes’ in the relevant box when asked during the application process. Applicants do not need to state any further information or declare their disability at the application stage.

The BSA follows government advice in that it is important to note that there may be occasions where it is not practicable or appropriate to interview all disabled people that meet the minimum criteria for the job. For example, in certain recruitment situations (such as a high number of applications), we may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people.

In these circumstances, we could select the disabled candidates who best meet the minimum criteria for the job rather than all of those that meet the minimum criteria, as we would do for non-disabled applicants.

Whether you are applying under the scheme or not, if you are successful in being shortlisted, we will ask candidates with disabilities or long-term health conditions to let us know if they need any adjustments during the recruitment process.

If you have further questions or would like this information in a different format, please contact: [email protected]  

Terms & conditions

From time to time the job entails working extended hours and occasional weekends, for which no overtime payments are made. The BSA operates a time off in lieu policy for weekend working and some other out-of-hours instances.

Only applicants who have a legal right to work within the UK will be considered. You will be asked to bring along proof of nationality and/or proof of ability to work in the UK.

You will also be asked to declare any previous convictions in line with your rights under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) order 1975.

This is a description of the job as it is presently constituted. It is the practice of the Association to examine job descriptions from time to time and to update them to ensure they relate to the job as then being performed, or to incorporate whatever changes are reasonably required, in discussion with the postholder.

It is the policy of the BSA to offer starting salaries at the bottom end of the salary band where appropriate.

A copy of our Privacy Notice is available on the vacancies page of our website.

*The Disability Confident scheme’s definition of disability is in line with the Equalities Act 2010: “a physical or mental condition which has a long-term and substantial effect on your daily life”.

Further information about our Disability Confident commitments can be found on the Disability Confident page of our website.

Our commitment to EDI

For the BSA's vision to come to fruition, we need to help science become part of culture, including those who are currently least engaged. We need to be able to engage with people in groups that are poorly represented in science, and that’s why equality, diversity & inclusion (EDI) needs to be central to our activities.​

The BSA has established three objectives for our work with EDI:​

• Develop our staff and internal systems to ensure the BSA reflects the society we want to see, and develops inclusive culture and policies;​
• Change our programmes to increase their relevance to audiences who are traditionally under-represented in science engagement activities, and empower people to run science engagement activities for their networks and communities;​
• Influence other organisations and individuals in the science engagement to sector to develop and improve their EDI practices in capability and audience development to reach new audiences.​

We recognise that in many settings, at the BSA and beyond, EDI can be seen as an add-on or ‘fix’ to the regular work. Our aim is for EDI to be the heart of everything we do.