Collaborative Grants Officer Grant Support

Tilburg University is an inclusive and engaged academic community, dedicated to sustainable broad prosperity for all. We are looking for a collaborative grants officer to help researchers fund their research projects on complex societal issues.

As a collaborative grants officer you will join the Grant Support team and you will assist researchers from Tilburg University in applying for consortium projects, in both Dutch and European research funding programmes. You support and advise TiU academics throughout the entire process, from identifying interesting grant opportunities, building consortia and helping shape proposals right up to the contract phase. 

As our job is characterized by working with deadlines, it is expected that you will help your colleagues from all sub-teams within Grant Support. 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. Your main focus will be on collaborative research grants, and you will act as the main contact point for one specific faculty namely the Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, but you are expected to support other faculties and grant types. Our team also includes two project managers with whom you will work closely.

If you enjoy working in a team, are proactive, and have strong communication and organization skills you could be a good match to join our team and our support network. You will be working together with many internal and external 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 TSHD. In the application phase, you are the linking pin in our organization, involving the project controllers, project support officers, contract managers, data managers and our own project managers when needed. Furthermore, you are the contact point for the consortium thus maintaining close relationships with the partner organizations and stakeholders in project development. 
  
Your tasks include (but are not limited to):

• Provide information (e.g. via newsletter, website, information sessions) and training to Tilburg University academics on relevant national and international grant schemes for research consortia. 
• Analyse calls, funding schemes, and policy frameworks. Create, signal, and follow-up on funding-leads in cooperation with TiU academics and with the other collaborative grant officers.
• Attend externally organised workshops and information meetings to keep up to date on the various grant schemes. Maintain contact with relevant funding organisations.
• Encourage and coordinate with academics to apply for research grants. Work on faculty- or university-wide strategies to increase the number and success rate of Tilburg applications, providing advice on funding opportunities and policy to the research coordinators, heads of departments, research support teams, vice-deans, and executive board.
• Strengthen grant proposals by advising on what a strong consortium would look like for a specific call.
• Act as contact point for the consortium, bring together and manage the consortium, make mutual agreements and proactively keep track of the partners’ activity. 
• Act as contact point for the internal support network, activate the right support units at the right time, coordinate the internal process. 
• Provide procedural support for applications, monitor deadlines and provide financial and administrative assistance in completing application forms. 
• Contribute to the project plan. Use tools for the identification of impact and output, make a clear and convincing contribution to the formulation of impact and project management. Offer impact training to consortia.
• Support the writing process by reading proposals and providing feedback on them. Translate the grant conditions of the specific scheme into suggestions for improvements that academics can use for their proposal. 

Your qualifications and talents:

• Academic level of work and thinking. Strong analytical skills.
• Experience in developing, writing, submitting and supporting research grant applications.
• Experience with grant rules and regulations, including financial and administrative.
• Affinity with academic research and familiarity with the translation into practical output for society. 
• 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 consortium, and the colleagues from Grant Support and the wider support network.
• Powerful networking skills; demonstrable involvement in (inter-)national networks.
• 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.

This is a position for 0.9-1.0 FTE (36-40 hours per week) of the full-time working week. The salary amounts to a minimum of €4537 and a maximum of €6209 gross per month for full time employment contract, based on UFO position: Policy Officer, level 3 / scale 11 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.