Research Grants Manager

About the role

Université La Sagesse (ULS) is seeking a Research Grants Manager to lead the Grants Unit within the Higher Center of Research and oversee the full lifecycle of externally funded research projects. The role covers identifying funding opportunities, supporting researchers in writing competitive proposals and budgets, and ensuring grant administration, financial compliance, reporting and project close-out.

Key responsibilities

• Maintain a funding calendar, screen calls and circulate a monthly funding digest to deans and research stakeholders; support principal investigators with work plans, partner documentation and submission portals.
• Prepare and verify proposal budgets with Finance, including eligible costs, staff allocations, co-financing and overheads.
• Coordinate the institutional review of grant agreements and amendments with Legal, set up project files, budget codes and reporting calendars, and monitor expenditure against budgets and deliverables.
• Coordinate technical and financial reports, maintain audit-ready documentation, confirm ethics approval with the IRB Manager, and track data management, open access, IP and visibility obligations.
• Coordinate audits, corrective actions and project close-out, including funder-specific retention requirements.
• Supervise the Research Grants Officer, allocate workload, set objectives, review work and contribute to performance appraisals, and ensure every live award has a named administrator and a back-up.
• Maintain grants templates, submission records and an institutional award register, and provide proposal clinics and training to researchers and project administrators.
• Supply award and output data to the Research Dissemination Coordinator and report the funding pipeline, submissions, success rates, awards, expenditure risks and reporting status to the Director of the Higher Center of Research.
• Prepare and recommend actions within delegated authority, with agreements, expenditure, payments and employment commitments requiring approval by the authorised university offices.

Required profile

• Master's degree or PhD in research administration, project management, finance, business, engineering or a relevant academic discipline with experience.
• At least five years in research grants or externally funded project administration, covering pre-award and post-award work.
• Preferred: experience with Horizon Europe, Erasmus+, PRIMA or Interreg NEXT MED programmes; experience in a university research office or multi-partner international consortium; experience supervising or training administrative staff; certification in project management or research administration.