Project Officer

About us

The Vice‑President, Research & Innovation (VPRI) portfolio supports the University of Toronto as a top public research university in the world. Our mission is to create the most supportive environment possible so that our researchers, innovators and learners can do what they do best – advance understanding and apply new knowledge. Our work supports, fosters and promotes the research and innovation culture and activities of our faculty, staff and students, along with our partner hospitals, funding sponsors, and partners in the public and private sector.

VPRI provides a full range of services including guidance to faculty, staff and students on funding opportunities, research agreement negotiation, oversight and accountability services including research accounting, environmental health and safety, innovation and entrepreneurship, partnerships, policies and procedures, and institutional awards and honours.

The Project Officer is part of the Centre for Research & Innovation Support (CRIS) team which provides researcher‑centred, practical and coordinated supports to faculty and divisional research offices. CRIS is a partnership, launched by the Division of the Vice‑President, Research & Innovation, the University of Toronto Libraries and Information Technology Services.

The Project Officer leads cross‑institutional teams to define strategic approach and broad policies as well as produce guidance and operational documents to enable implementation. The Project Officer works with stakeholders from across the University, and through our national network of external stakeholders in order to identify and document existing resource offerings including expertise, platforms, services, technology, training and resources. The Project Officer will maintain the digital resources including interactive tools to help researchers to find the most suitable resources.

As the research landscape and needs of our research community continue to evolve, the Project Officer will work collaboratively to scope and improve existing offerings and propose new solutions, in order to launch new services and resources to address major gap areas. A core component of the work is to support the Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI) initiative and assist to define and launch a service to provide a direct support for researchers to understand their DRI needs and assess their technical requirements and provide training and support to operationalize the solutions.

The Project Officer will complete assessments and provide direct technical support for researchers.

• Working with committees, contributes to the implementation of the institutional strategy and guidance for the University to comply with Tri‑Agency Policy; develops accompanying guidance documents for research leadership and units across the University.
• Provides secretariate support to the DRI Council and other committees by coordinating integrated workplans and meeting agendas, schedules and speakers on behalf of the VP Research and Strategic Initiatives. The Project Officer participates in the DRI and other Working Groups convening cross‑institutional committees to assess researcher needs and create guidance materials.
• Leads the oversight of website assets that help researchers across the University learn about and access expertise, platforms, services and resources.
• Acts as the main point of contact for researchers to identify, and respond to their needs, coordinates technical consultations in collaboration with service delivery units across the University to determine best technology and tools to meet requirements.
• Identify gaps in services and supports, analyze and recommend potential changes to existing systems and tools, drafts proposals to and provides options for senior leadership decision making that consider strategic alignment, resource requirements, sustainability, and potential impact.

• Bachelor's Degree or acceptable combination of equivalent experience related to a Digital Research Infrastructure field such as data management library or information studies, computer science, computational sciences, engineering,…