Project Manager - QUALREP (The Quality of Women’s Political Representation)

Job description

The QUALREP project manager will play a critical role in ensuring the success of this UKRI funded (successfully applied for through the ERC Synergy scheme), five-year, multi-institutional, European research project. They will work with the principal investigators and whole project team to ensure that the project’s activities and outputs are integrated, effectively managed, and delivered on time. The project manager will play a central role working to ensure good communication and planning across the team. They will exercise leadership and initiative in structuring and organising key milestones, meetings, and realising deliverables, and helping the team to develop impact, engagement and communication strategy, and outputs. 

The post-holder will be expected to work closely and support the QUALREP principal investigators based at KCL and the University of Edinburgh, as well as working with the Policy Institute’s professional services and research management team. The role will suit a confident and organised individual with strong project management skills, excellent communication skills, and a demonstrable interest in and knowledge of issues pertaining to gender equality. Experience with financial management of research grants is also desirable.   

QUALREP is a five-country case study research project with team members spread across six HE institutions. The project aims to address fundamental questions of feminism and democracy, deepening academic, public, and political comprehension of the nexus between sex, gender, political equality, and inclusive participation, and thereby democratic effectiveness and legitimacy. QUALREP involves in depth qualitative work with grassroots women’s organisations in Belgium, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and the UK, alongside quantitative survey analysis and the study of parliamentary behaviour.  The project manager will have a commitment to the aims and ethos of QUALREP, and have experience working on multi-stakeholder projects.  

This post will be offered on an a fixed-term contract for 5 years 

This post is available on a full time, part time, flexible and job-share basis.

Key responsibilities

With the principal investigators:  

• Lead on event management and logistics for the project: support the promotion and organisation of key project events in UK and other overseas locations (including team meetings, workshops, meetings with stakeholders, project conferences etc.); including sourcing and booking venues, equipment and catering, developing conference programmes, timetables and dissemination materials, and registering participants. 
• Working with the Policy Institute Professional Service Team, be responsible for risk management for activities relating to the project, including: completing risk assessments for events, complete travel and accommodation arrangements in line with KCL travel procedures. 
• Lead on the valuation of events: obtaining evaluation from events and analysing feedback for the project team. 
• Be responsible for financial reporting on the project and provide continuous review of finances in support of operational planning.  

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.  

Skills, knowledge, and experience 

The post holder will have excellent project management skills and experience in the project management of multi-stakeholder projects. The post holder will have strong communication skills and be a collaborative team member. Ideally the postholder will have experience working with international teams and experience in public events management. The post holder will be committed to the aims of the QUALREP project.  

Essential criteria  

1.       Educated to Degree Level, or equivalent.  

2.       Proven ability to work with research teams and experience of managing research projects. 

3.       Strong communication and interpersonal skills in order to receive, understand and relay specialist or professional ideas or complex information to various groups within and beyond academia.  

4.       Excellent written, verbal and presentation skills 

5.       Organised and reliable, with an ability to work independently and manage different aspects of the project simultaneously.  

6.        Problem solving skills including a flexible and pragmatic approach.  

7.       Willingness and ability to travel internationally, as required by the project. 

8.       Knowledge of and experience in successfully applying project management tools and methodologies. 

9.       Excellent task management skills and ability to work under pressure in a busy environment with a high degree of accuracy and attention to detail. 

10.   Highly proficient IT skills (including Excel, Word, Powerpoint)  

Desirable criteria

1. MSc or PhD in discipline relating to gender and/or politics 

2. Project Management training or equivalent accreditation  

3. Experience with specialist project management software 

4. Previous relevant experience of working in a Higher Education institution 

Further information

QUALREP is a five-year, £6 million research project. Originally awarded by the European Research Council (ERC), it is funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Achieving women’s equal political participation and representation is recognised as a priority by the international community, yet there is increasing recognition that representative democracy has failed to deliver political equality for all women. Numerically under-represented in the world’s democracies, women - especially minoritised and marginalised women - experience a poverty of ‘good’ representation. These are ‘troubled times’: potentially devastating natural and human-made crises (climate change, global pandemics, and economic inequality), all have a disproportionate impact on the world’s most marginalised women, amplifying the need for effective political representation. The rise of populism contests representative democracy’s ability to respond, but also frequently deploys anti-feminist claims that undermine gender equality. Evidence showing how and when women in their diversity can be well represented is needed to strengthen democratic institutions and processes to enable the promise of democracy to be more fully realised. QUALREP addresses this need by conducting a theoretically driven analysis of the quality of women’s representation, attentive to intersectional and ideological diversity, with particular concern for the most marginalised women, across five European nations, selected to represent variation in gendered welfare regimes: Belgium; Poland; Portugal, Sweden, and the UK. QUALREP takes some of the most difficult challenges for understanding the quality of women’s political representation head on by considering competing claims to represent the interests of women, for example mobilisation around trans women’s rights and access to single sex spaces.  QUALREP brings together a research team that bridges the silos that stifle progress, utilising their deep country knowledge and connections with stakeholders, alongside their commitment to impactful research, to deliver a step change in the field of gender and politics.

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