Individual Grants Officer Grant Support

Tilburg University is an inclusive and engaged academic community, dedicated to sustainable broad prosperity for all. We are looking for an individual grants officer to help researchers fund their own research projects.

As an individual grants officer you will join the Grant Support team and you will assist researchers from Tilburg University in applying for individual / personal research projects, in both Dutch and European research funding programmes. You support and advise TiU academics throughout the entire process, from identifying interesting grant opportunities, offering grant writing training, providing detailed feedback on proposals, rebuttals and mock interviews, and ensuring a smooth submission process. 

As our job is characterized by working with deadlines, it is expected that you will help your colleagues. The team is currently composed of ten grant advisors, who all have their own specific pre-award focus, be it research or education grants, individual or collaborative grants, specific funding schemes, specific faculties or research communities. Our team also includes two project managers. Your main focus will be on individual research grants, and you will act as the main contact point for one specific faculty, namely the Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, but you are expected to support other faculties with individual research (and education) grants.

If you enjoy working in a team, are proactive, have strong organization and presenting skills and you enjoy reading about research from a wide range of disciplines, you could be a good match to join our team and our support network. You will be working together with many partners besides the applicants. In identifying grant opportunities you will collaborate with research coordinators, heads of departments, the research support team and the vice-dean of research of TSB. In the application phase, you connect to other support units when needed like the project controllers, project support officers, contract managers, data managers and our own project managers. Furthermore, you are the contact point for different funding agencies for individual grant schemes.
  
Your tasks include (but are not limited to):

• Make relevant national and European funding schemes accessible, with a specific focus on individual research grants from NWO, ERC and MSCA. 
• Coordinate and specifically encourage researchers to acquire grants.
• Ensure a structured, adequate and timely supply of information to researchers of relevant grants.
• Organize and provide information meetings and training on the various grant schemes.
• Monitor eligibility of scientists for specific grants, actively identify opportunities for each researcher. Work proactively with Research Support Teams, Vice-Deans and Heads of Departments to encourage researchers to apply for and obtain grants.
• Act as contact person for the main funding agencies and external companies that offer workshops/coaching with regards to research funding acquisition.
• Read and provide detailed feedback on research proposals. Efficiently and effectively translate the funding conditions of the specific scheme into concrete tips & tricks for researchers to improve their proposal. Check the proposals for formal criteria that apply to the funding scheme in question. 
• Offer procedural support for grant applications, monitor applicable deadlines and assist with administrative details of application forms. Connect to other support units like Project Control and Contract Management when other expertise is required. 
• Attend externally organized workshops and information meetings to keep up to date with the various funding schemes. 

Your qualifications and talents:

• Academic level of work and thinking. Strong analytical skills.
• Experience and/or demonstrable affinity with developing, writing, submitting and supporting research grant applications.
• Experience and/or affinity with academic research.
• Excellent written and oral skills in English, command of the Dutch language is a plus.
• Excellent social and communication skills, a proactive, stimulating attitude; you form a team with the researcher, the colleagues from Grant Support and the wider support network.
• Stress-resistance; able to work effectively under time pressure. 
• Excellent planning and organizational skills, you can control several projects and/or deadlines at the same time.
• Analytical and critical thinking; keeping a helicopter view.
• Good presenting skills. 

This is a position for 1.0 FTE (40 hours per week) of the full-time working week. The salary amounts to a minimum of €3378 and a maximum of €5331 gross per month for full time employment contract, based on UFO position: Policy Officer, level 4 / scale 10 of the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities. Tilburg University uses a neutral salary system for scaling that is based on relevant education and work experience. 

This is a vacancy for a position in accordance with Article 2.3, paragraph 1 of the CLA for Dutch Universities. You will be given a temporary employment contract for the duration of 12 months. 

You are entitled to a vacation allowance of 8% and a year-end bonus of 8.3% of your gross annual income. If you work 40 hours per week, you will receive 41 paid days of leave per year.

Tilburg University offers excellent employment conditions. We think flexibility, professional and personal development, and good employee benefits important. We make clear agreements about career paths and offer all kinds of facilities and schemes to maintain an optimal balance between work and private life. You can also follow numerous training courses, for example in the areas of leadership skills, personal effectiveness, and career development. 

Tilburg University values an open and inclusive culture. We embrace diversity and encourage the mutual integration of groups of employees and students. We focus on creating equal opportunities for all our employees and students, so that everyone feels at home in our university community. Tilburg University has a lively campus in beautiful green surroundings that is easily accessible by public transport. We are committed to a sustainable society and challenge you to make an active contribution. Please visit working at Tilburg University for more information on our terms of employment. 

Service society and making it better for its citizens. That is what drives us. Tilburg University's founder, Martinus Cobbenhagen, believed that anyone who wants to understand society must be actively and consciously involved in it. These ideas still form the basis of our university.

Under the motto Understanding society, our more than 2,800 employees develop and transfer knowledge and bring people from different disciplines and organizations together. In this way, we want to contribute to solving complex social issues. In doing so, we work from the fields of economics, business and entrepeneurship, social and behavioral sciences, law and administration, humanities and digital sciences, and theology.

We educate our 20,000 students of 132 nationalities to become Tilburg University Shaped Professionals: responsible and entrepeneurial thinkers, driven by solidarity, a sense of responsibility and empathy, who are able to influence and give direction to a rapidly changing society in an innovative way.

More information about the vacancy can be obtained from Suzanne Jongman at s.r.jongman@tilburguniversity.edu or 013-466 3710.

We invite you to apply for this position no later than April 6th; this can only be done online. Please address your motivation letter to dr. Suzanne Jongman (Head of Grant Support) and attach a CV and at least one reference (organization, contact person, phone number, and e-mail address). We will only approach referees for candidates who proceed to the second selection round.

First round interviews will take place in the week of April 14 (second round in the following week). You will ideally start working for our team in May or June 2025. This vacancy has been published internally and externally.