Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Department Overview

As part of the £40 million LifeArc investment to transform rare disease research, a number of high-value projects and programmes have been awarded. Birmingham is taking a national leadership role in driving transformative health research and clinical innovation, including in the LifeArc Centre for Acceleration of Rare Disease Trials (ARDT) - https://rarediseasetrials.org.uk/. The project directors are Professor Timothy Barrett, Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health and Director of the Centre for Rare Disease Studies, and Professor Amos Burke, Director of the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit. This centre aims to boost the capacity and efficiency of rare disease trials across the UK – including facilitating equitable recruitment, streamlining administrative hurdles and offering a ‘one-stop shop’ for trial design and support.

Role Summary

As a data manager within the LifeArc ARDT Centre, you will provide support for a broad range of data related and administrative duties, some of which may be complex. You will work specifically within Work Package 5 (Implementing Innovation in the NHS) of the LifeArc ARDT Centre to provide support for the effective delivery of a devolved 4 nations approach to research. The aims of this work package are to incorporate health economic data into trial designs, and to scope barriers to UK-wide medicines implementation and address ethical issues around access to medicines (working with the other work packages). The data manager post will support the convening of future workshops for regulatory institutions, Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and other key stakeholders, to identify barriers and facilitators to implementation of innovation in rare diseases in the NHS, and to deliver consensus recommendations. The post holder will be involved in all aspects of data collection, management and verification, and accurate input and reporting, including undertaking regular checks to validate and verify information. You will have the opportunity to contribute to the development and improvement of procedures and protocols.

Main Duties

• Acting as a key communications point for research teams and other associated members, you will receive and resolve queries through to resolution. While there are still clear general processes and procedures, problems arise which call for choice based.
• Proactively managing communications with, for example, the project team across the consortium, for data collection, ensuring everyone is kept up to date as appropriate.
• Ensuring confidentiality on all work at all times.
• You will be able to deal with complex systems and procedures and will be expected to offer advice on these, including deciding on the response to more complex queries.
• Assisting with general data management and record keeping.
• Responsibility for accurately entering data into a variety of research and administrative databases, including non-routine or ad-hoc data (i.e. that requires more interpretation or development of new codes) under guidance.
• Performing regular, systematic checks to validate and verify information on the database(s) in order to produce a clean, accurate and complete data set for analysis. Identifying and resolving any missing, incomplete or contradictory data. Producing reports and lists on both a regular and ad-hoc basis.
• Working with senior staff you will test data entry, validation and report generation applications, reporting errors and suggesting modifications. You may create and test simple ad-hoc databases, forms, surveys and report generation on your own initiative.
• Providing administrative support as required. This may include maintaining stocks of supplies, assisting in organising meetings and travel, handling petty cash, and day to day distribution of materials to external centres.
• Developing and documenting standard operating procedures for the work of the post, for review by managers. Assisting with the supervision and training of less senior team members, checking the work done by others as appropriate.
• Developing skills and experience by taking part in training to develop advanced computing and broader trial/data management skills.
• Covering for managers within own area of expertise. Decides on short term priorities and timetabling for own and sometimes others’ work.
• Any other duties as may be required commensurate with the post.
• Supports equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others. Treats everyone with dignity and respect in line with current equality legislation.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Educated to A Level standard, or equivalent level 3 qualification such as a Level 3 NVQ, or level 3 national diploma or relevant work experience evidencing the skills and ability to undertake the role.
• GCSEs to a minimum of grade C/4 in English and Mathematics grade C/4 minimum (or equivalent level 2 qualification).
• Prior knowledge of rare disease landscapes (desirable).
• Experience of medical data coding, data entry and data validation techniques. Able to query and maintain computer databases.
• Must demonstrate a critical and intelligent attention to detail including high standards of accuracy.
• Ability to demonstrate excellent organisational skills including the ability to work independently and prioritise own workload with minimum supervision to ensure tasks meet agreed deadlines.
• Ability to identify and break down potential problems using past experience and knowledge of good research practices, whilst having regard to their impact outside own area
• Ability to proactively suggest improvements