About the role

At The Brilliant Club, we mobilise the PhD community to support students from less advantaged backgrounds to access the most competitive universities and succeed when they get there. We work with students who, because of their family income, parental history or the postcode they live in, are at risk of missing out on the life-changing opportunities linked to higher education.

We are excited to be recruiting a Research and Impact Director to lead the charity’s research and evaluation work. This senior role will be a part of the Senior Leadership Group and will report to the Chief Programmes and Communities Officer. Furthermore, the role will involve influencing and collaborating with different teams from across the organisation to ensure the research work that we do is to the highest standards and aligns with the charity’s strategic priorities. The role will be a figurehead internally and externally on all things research and evaluation.  

The Research and Impact Department has two key areas of responsibility: evaluating and reporting the impact of the charity’s programmes and providing research and evaluation consultancy to mission-aligned organisations. The team consists of a Senior Impact and Evaluation Officer who evaluates the impact of our programmes and oversees stakeholder impact reporting, as well as a Research and Evaluation Consultancy Lead and Senior Research and Evaluation Officer who deliver the charity’s consultancy work via Brilliant Consulting.

The Brilliant Club has a strong reputation in the sector for our approach to evaluating internal programmes. As well as utilising UCAS progression data and the Higher Education Access Tracker to monitor long term impact, the Research and Impact Department regularly undertake internal research projects to enhance and improve our programmatic impact. As we embark on our next strategy, the successful candidate will play a pivotal role in this process of continuous evaluation and programmatic improvement.

Through our consultancy work, we have partnered with a range of universities and education organisations, such as the Centre for Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education (TASO) and The Sutton Trust. A key part of this role will be building our consultancy work further in order to generate income and new strategic partnerships.

The successful candidate will have a proven track record of leading research and evaluation work in a relevant field and will have strong research skills and knowledge of evaluation methodologies. They will be highly experienced with managing stakeholder relationships and have commercial acumen. While this role can be based at either our London or Leeds office, some travel will be required (mainly to London) to attend in-person meetings.

About you

The role will best suit someone who:

Essential

• Has a PhD, or equivalent, in a relevant field.

• Has advanced knowledge of both quantitative and qualitative research skills and knowledge of evaluation methodologies. 

• Has a proven track record of delivering high quality evaluations in educational settings.

• Has experience of managing an evaluation team and balancing research priorities with wider organisational priorities.    

• Proven ability to lead winning research and evaluation bids.

• Experience of establishing and managing strong stakeholder relationships.

• Has excellent written and verbal communication skills, and experience of research communications.

• Evaluator service to support the charity’s evaluation of long-term outcomes.

• Will adhere to information security policies included in the charity’s ISO 27001 manual and Complete information security training.

• Has a demonstrable passion for furthering The Brilliant Club’s mission.

Desirable

• Ideally has published in a field relevant to The Brilliant Club’s work.

• Ideally has knowledge of the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) and UCAS’ Outreach