Research Funding Officer

Salary: £40,000-£42,000

Contract: Permanent

Hours: 37 per week

Closing Date: 30th January 2026

Organisation position and purpose

Grants play a crucial role in enabling Pirbright to undertake groundbreaking research and remain a world-leader in its field. From small travel grants allowing early career researchers to connect with other labs, to multi-million pound programs of research involving teams from across the globe, all the grants we are awarded are integral in helping Pirbright achieve its mission of advancing research to prevent and control viral diseases and safeguard animal and human health worldwide. This post sits within the Grants and Science Administration team within the Research and Innovation Department, reporting to the Grant Funding Manager. The Research Funding Officer will play a central role in the scientific administration of the institute's grant funded research portfolio from application (pre-award) to completion (post-award). They will lead on facilitating the internal review and application process acting as the key contact for any administrative queries, organising quarterly review meetings and ensuring that deadlines are met. They will be responsible for maintaining accurate data on grants that will be used for key strategic decision making by senior members of staff and will need to be confident producing a range of reports using primarily Microsoft Excel. Although this role sits within a small team, the Research Funding Officer works closely with other departments at the Institute such as Finance, HR and the Science Directorate so the ability to build relationships and work collaboratively is essential. The Research Funding Officer will be part of a proactive, enthusiastic and professional support team which is well established within the Institute.

Main duties and responsibilities Pre and post award project management

• Work autonomously to support researchers prepare their funding applications, advising on funder and institutional administrative requirements.
• Understand funder guidance documents and communicate grant submission processes across the Institute.
• Manage pre and post award funder portal processes such as grant submission and project change requests.
• Manage Institute user-accounts for funder portals and be the point of contact for user issues.
• Maintain the department tracking documents to keep abreast of where projects are in the application/grant life cycle.
• Produce the monthly funding bulletin, identifying funding calls within Pirbright's remit and sharing news on the funding landscape/changing guidelines/processes with science staff across the Institute.
• Build relationships and liaise with internal staff (e.g Science, Finance, HR) on various administrative aspects of grant funded projects.
• Conduct initial quality checks of grants and advise Grant Funding Manager on the completeness of proposals
• Disseminate information and collate responses from different departments throughout the project lifecycle.
  Liaise with other departments (Finance, Science and HR) to ensure that actions relating to projects are complete.
• Represent the Grants Team at internal project progress meetings with researchers.
• Be the departmental point of contact for administrative queries.
• Liaise with funders as appropriate on grant related queries and administration.
• Manage the administration of project change requests including liaising with researchers on what change is required, disseminating information and obtaining approvals from