Space Partnership Board seeks to appoint an Independent Chair

Salary: This role is not remunerated. (Reasonable expenses incurred for in person meetings will be repaid.)

Time commitment: Less than 1 day per month, to include: attendance at virtual monthly Board meeting for 1.5 hours, preparatory call with Space Partnership Director for 1 hour, speaking on behalf of the Board externally as required.

Term: Until end of March 2025

Location: Majority of meetings will take place virtually, with in person meetings no more than twice a year

About the Space Partnership:

The Space Partnership brings together industry, academia and Government stakeholders to work on shared priority issues to realise the ambition set out in the National Space Strategy, and to grow the UK space sector. The Space Partnership Board is the mechanism to fairly reflect all stakeholders across industry, academia and Government so that these shared priorities can be agreed and tangible proposals developed to benefit all parts of the sector across the UK. More details can be found on the Space Partnership website along with the Terms of Reference for the Space Partnership Board, the relevant sections are repeated below.

Purpose of the Space Partnership Board

The Space Partnership Board brings together equal representation from industry, academia and Government to enable:

• Shared priority issues that will address the ambition set out in the NSS to be agreed

• Collective action that will enable this ambition to be delivered and grow the UK space sector to be agreed

The Space Partnership Board provides clear direction to the Space Partnership Director, as well as providing oversight and advice.

Role of Independent Chair

The Space Partnership Board Chair is independent of the three stakeholder groups (industry, academia and government) and non-voting. The Space Partnership Board Chair will:

• Speak on behalf of the SP Board when necessary

• Mediate between the different stakeholders in an open, objective and transparent way

• Ensure 9 votes are cast for every decision taken and that the majority is 5 or more for approval to be given

• Work with the SP Director to: agree the agenda and supporting papers required; ensure during meetings that there is sufficient opportunity for parties to contribute to the discussion before decisions are made, yet keeping the meeting to time.

Person Requirements:

The Space Partnership Board is looking for an effective Chair, someone who has:

• Demonstrable independence: Bringing stakeholders together with differing viewpoints and objectives to reach alignment and agree where trade-offs could be made will require a person who is clearly independent of industry, academia and government. This could be someone with significant experience in the space sector who is no longer actively involved in the space sector or someone from another sector with experience of bringing industry, academia and government together.

• High Integrity: Someone with the highest personal standards with regard to honesty, reliability, and commitment to the role. They must always do the right thing, and have the right conversations, even if this is difficult. 

• Ability to influence others, without dominating: The Chair is responsible for ensuring all Board members are using their own unique skills for the good of the Space Partnership. The Chair must ensure all Board members contribute to discussions and the decision-making process.

• Significant experience of Chairing meetings: Demonstrated in a range of different forums the ability to keep meetings to time, ensuring balanced input from all members, ensuring clarity about decisions and actions agreed.

If you are widely recognised as having these skills, please consider applying for this role.

Application process:

The Satellite Applications Catapult are running the application process on behalf of the Space Partnership. The Satellite Applications Catapult is committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and is determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable. To support this the Applied recruitment software is being used to ensure unbiased hiring that has inclusivity and diversity at its core. Applicants will be asked to answer 3 questions, which will be anonymously reviewed by the selection panel to ensure fairness. You will be asked to share a CV highlighting your extensive Chairing experience, which will be considered once the scored questions have produced the short-list of candidates for interview.

The recruitment timeline is:

• Thursday 19th October 2023: Applications open and Job Description is advertised

• Thursday 30th November 2023: Applications close

• Monday 11th December 2023: Shortlisting call, with interview invitations issued shortly afterwards

• Thursday 11th January 2024: Interviews in Harwell

• Tuesday 16th February 2024 (10:00-11:30, in person at the Satellite Applications Catapult, Harwell): First Board meeting as Independent Chair

Important notice for applicants: We use tools to detect plagiarism and the use of AI or chatbots for applicant answers. If plagiarism, AI use (such as ChatGPT) or similar software are found to have been used in your application you will not be considered for this or future roles within the Satellite Applications Catapult