Legal Manager (Commercial & Research)

Grade: UKRI Pay Band F

A great benefits package is offered including an outstanding pension scheme, 30 days annual leave plus bank holidays

Hours: Full-time – 37 hours a week is preferred (Part-time will be considered for a minimum of 30 hours p/w)

Location: BGS headquarters in Keyworth

About the role

BGS has this exciting new role, and the key responsibilities/duties are:

• To support an anticipated increase in our commercial research activity by working alongside colleagues from both science and operations to support, negotiate and lead on legal aspects of BGS commissioned and collaborative research work.
• To facilitate major national and international geoscientific research and collaboration projects.
• Review our internal legal, contractual, and operational frameworks associated with bid, tender, contractual and certain procurement processes.

About you

You will contribute to navigating complex bid/tender opportunities and then securing and maintaining contracts/agreements on optimal and legally secure terms.

To succeed in this exciting new role, you will need to be:

• An expert trusted legal and contracts resource for BGS.
• Comfortable with and experienced in leading and managing the provision of legal support, negotiation, and problem-solving skills to research projects.
• Comfortable with managing your own responsibilities and workload, within an often-high-pressured legal environment.
• Adaptable, flexible and pragmatic, with the ability to think outside of the box when required, to getting complex, sensitive, or non-standard situations ‘over the line.’
• A superb communicator. Able to build relationships both with legal counterparts at the organisations BGS works for/with, as well as with our colleagues in other teams across both operational (e.g. Business Development) and scientific functions.

Travel within the UK, or occasionally overseas, will be required in this role.

The following specific essential and desirable skills criteria for this post will be assessed at shortlist (S) stage, interview (I) stage, or both (S&I).

Essential

• Law degree or other degree with relevant legal/commercial contracts experience and qualifications (S)
• Substantial amount of experience of leading the management of complex legal and contractual processes associated with commercial tender, contract, and research agreement work (S&I)
• Expert knowledge of contract law and practise/management (S&I)
• Working unsupervised, but also as a key, senior, member of a wider Legal Team and in compliance with local and corporate policies (S&I)
• Approachable, coupled with the experience, authority and determination required to manage difficult conversations and decisions with (senior) colleagues and external parties (I)
• Understands and has experience of the needs of a commercial business unit (S&I)

Desirable

• Further relevant legal degree or other qualifications, e.g. commercial law, contract law, intellectual property rights law and Project Management qualifications (S)
• Experience of working within a UK research institute and/or public sector body (or demonstrable experience of routinely working with/for such organisations) (S&I)
• In-depth understanding of specific legislation/regulations of relevance to scientific research community and public sector (S&I)

The closing date for receipt of applications is Sunday 30 March 2025. Interviews are expected to be held in mid-April in Nottingham.

To apply, please click on the ‘Apply’ button above.

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