An exciting opportunity has arisen to lead the Communications team in the South London Regional Research Delivery Network (RRDN), hosted by Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. The Communications Manager will lead regional and national communications as part of the Research Delivery Network (RDN) Communications Team, dispersed across the 12 Regional Research Delivery Networks (RRDN) and the RDN Coordinating Centre. As a senior member of the RDN Communications Team, you will provide a high quality, professional and proactive communications service to the RDN regionally and nationally, and will report to the RRDN Head of Strategy, Engagement and Inclusion.
This role will take responsibility for RDN communication using a range of different channels that will promote the reputation of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Research Delivery Network (RDN) as a high-quality health and care research organisation. They will lead the delivery of a corporate communication strategy and associated communication activities, engagement events and marketing initiatives to enable the RDN to deliver on its strategic objectives and showcase the RDN’s impact. In addition, they will have line management responsibility for the Communications Officer.
The NIHR RRDNs will have three key roles which it will fulfil via new models of service delivery and functions, to:
provide support to research sites to enable the effective and efficient initiation and delivery of funded research across the health and care system in England;
enable the strategic development of new and more effective research delivery capability and capacity. This will include bringing research to under-served regions and communities with major health and care needs;
work jointly with the Coordinating Centre in the strategic oversight of the NIHR RDN. This will ensure that the Portfolio is maintained as a cohort of high-quality, fully-funded, viable and deliverable studies. It will also ensure that the NIHR RDN as a whole serves the research delivery needs of investigators and R&D teams and is responsive to the changing domestic and global environment for health and care, life sciences and health research.
Main responsibilities include:
- Understand the communications needs of all RRDN services and support the optimisation of those services through effective and impactful communications
- Lead on the production of corporate communications aligned to the RDN strategic objectives
- Undertake regional and cross regional events management
- Triangulate/scope impact statements and stories for potential media and other coverage in conjunction with regional stakeholders
- Lead and deliver national/regional campaigns and communications channels
