Researcher Networks Manager

Salary: £72,000

Closing date:
Tuesday, 10 March 2026

Contract type:
Fixed Term Contract – End date:
March 202 7

Interview dates: 1st stage (3 0 /03 and
03 /
04)
online/Remote

The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation. We improve health for everyone by funding science, leading policy and advocacy campaigns, and building partnerships.

We plan to spend £16bn over the next ten years, funding new discoveries in life, health, and wellbeing, and taking on three global health challenges: mental health, infectious disease and climate and health.

These challenges need the bold discovery research we support. Our mission in Discovery Research, a strategic programme within the Discovery Department at Wellcome, is to generate new knowledge that has the potential to transform life, health and wellbeing in ways we can’t always anticipate. We fund researchers, the UK and in LMICs, across disciplines and career stages, creating the conditions for ambitious and transformative research ideas to flourish.

By investing in tools, technologies and research cultures, we aim to remove barriers and enable breakthroughs that improve health for everyone.

We take a long‑term view, helping research that spans from fundamental biology to social sciences. Our approach includes regular funding opportunities for both investigator and team‑led research programmes, major long‑term investments and directed initiatives in critical fields to catalyse new research approaches. Diversity and interdisciplinary collaboration are at the heart of our vision, ensuring richer insights and more impactful discoveries.

We are looking for a Researcher Networks Manager to join our team on a fixed term contract (End date: March 2027).

You will be working in the Discovery Research directorate, which is the largest funding area within Wellcome. The role sits within the Early Career and Career Development Researchers team within Discovery Research but will interact with all of the sub‑teams covering the Open Mode funding and directed funding of research and initiatives.

This role sits at the heart of our work as a directorate to strengthen research relationships, community engagement, and innovation. The role will continue momentum on existing work while engaging with researchers across all disciplines—regardless of their funding route—and fostering strong links with community partners.

In this role, you’ll lead the ongoing development and delivery of Discovery Research’s approach to engaging research communities, helping us build strong, accessible connections with researchers across career stages and regions. We want to work to better coordinate and standardise our external engagement and optimise how we interact with diverse cohorts and ensure our engagement is inclusive, dynamic and helps with our wider strategic ambitions.

• Oversee a programme of Discovery Research–driven engagement activities, ensuring external interactions are purposeful, coordinated and aligned with strategic goals.

• Refine our existing approaches and establish a “design brief” approach that ensures the tools and resources to deliver engagement activities are in place and understood by the wider team

• Develop a clear understanding of the needs and priorities of diverse DR communities, and work with colleagues across DR and Research Programmes to shape activities that respond to these.

• Drive progress towards a biannual cycle of activities to be delivered by sub‑teams with a clear identity to the core Discovery Research vision

• Identifying shared interests and creating opportunities for partnerships with funders, partner organisations, industry and the wider research community.

• Work across the teams within Wellcome to support development of cross‑cutting activities and represent the interested and priorities of Discovery Research in those opportunities.

If you have substantial experience in academic research and funding activity —both in the UK and internationally—and you thrive in roles that connect diverse research communities, this could be an excellent fit for you. You’ll enjoy this job if you’re…