Main Purpose of the Job

Applications are invited for two part-time secondments (up to 0.5FTE) for the role of BioFAIR Architects. The BioFAIR Architects will support the BioFAIR Director by providing the technical architectural leadership for the initiative through collaboration with the technical leaders in the BioFAIR spokes and across from the UK life sciences community during the initial start-up phase.

Working under the direction of the BioFAIR Director, the technical architects will provide the consistent technical leadership for the start up phase project prior to the appointment of the permanent architect later in 2025.. The architects will be responsible for establishing a strong community-led culture of collaboration and collective responsibility. They will use the skills and experience of the delivery team to establish an initial architecture that can be deployed and operated at scale, but is minimal, flexible and modular so as to support future agility and subsequent adaptions to the changing requirements of UK life science researchers.

These roles require strong technical skills from a research computing environment, who can work with the stakeholders to refine key technical requirements and can work with the technical teams to ensure that these are delivered in a responsive, consistent and cohesive way. These roles also require an agile, pragmatic and delivery-based mindset with a focus on simplicity; we’re looking to establish a foundation, not to create a five year enterprise architecture development plan. This will require the ability to build and maintain excellent technical relationships across the UK and internationally with a focus on building to define a distributed infrastructure assembled from existing best of breed capabilities.

These roles will be appointed as secondments.

Main Activities & Responsibilities

Percentage

Architecture Group:
They will be responsible for participating in the BioFAIR Architecture group.  They will provide leadership for the stakeholder engagement to ensure that the Architecture Group is responsive to evolving user requirements and remains collaborative in its delivery.

20

Strategic Planning: They will engage in developing and refining the technical vision and overall architecture for BioFAIR in collaboration with key stakeholders, including UKRI, Research Performing Organisations, research teams, and the broader life science community.

20

Partnerships and Collaborations: Under the direction of the BioFAIR Director, they will identify, establish and coordinate technical partnerships with relevant organisations, both nationally and internationally, to leverage expertise, resources, and best practices in data management, analytics, and FAIR principles. This will include collaborating with ELIXIR, UKRN, SSI, DCC, Galaxy Community, and other relevant stakeholders and other complementary Digital Research Infrastructures.

15

Technology Evaluation and Selection: The Architects, with the support of the Architecture Group, will work across the community to identify potential services, tools and capabilities to support BioFAIR.  The Architects will lead feasibility studies to evaluate potential services and tools. From these studies they will identify the technical requirements for the competitive spoke selection calls working with the BioFAIR Director to ensure fairness and transparency in this selection.  

They will work to ensure that BioFAIR maintains a core approach of assembling for best-of-breed services and reuses wherever and whenever possible.

10

Technical Leadership: They will provide oversight and guidance to the delivery team and support the spokes in the development of services that can be deployed with production capability. They will ensure agile, responsive delivery with a focus on pragmatism, and will monitor delivery performance of spokes with regular engagement. They will also evaluate production quality through defined service level objectives (SLOs). They will be responsible with the delivery team for setting and monitoring these SLOs.

They will have responsibility for communicating the technical impact of the BioFAIR project and ensuring that the Director can communicate this to the UKRI Executive leadership through the BioFAIR Project Board. 

10

Trusted Advisor:  The Architects will provide technical advice and guidance to the Director.  They will actively participate in and engage the Research and Technical Advisory Group.

10

Any other duties as appropriate for the role in agreement with the line manager.

10

They will ensure that the project embeds a culture of equality, diversity and inclusivity across all aspects of delivery and throughout all of its activities.

5

Education & Qualifications

Requirement

Importance

Degree in a relevant discipline

Essential

Specialist Knowledge & Skills

Requirement

Importance

Practical knowledge of modern computers, storage and cloud technologies

Essential

Practical knowledge of modern metadata approaches

Essential

Relevant Experience

Requirement

Importance

Track record of open technical collaboration

Essential

Experience of horizon scanning and delivery of new technologies

Essential

Experience of supporting and collaborating with academic research communities

Desirable

Interpersonal & Communication Skills

Requirement

Importance

Committed to the principles of FAIR and open science data sharing

Essential

Outstanding proven experience of collaboration

Essential

Ability to create, build and sustain networks of technical collaborators

Essential

Open-minded, determined and resilient

Essential

Ability to communicate effectively and appropriately at all levels

Essential

Able to represent BioFAIR and EI to a high standard externally with a wide range of stakeholders

Essential

Strong team player; working together to reach common goals; sharing information and supporting colleagues and collaborators

Essential

Strong negotiation skills

Essential

Additional Requirements

Requirement

Importance

Attention to detail

Essential

Promotes equality and values diversity

Essential

Be an outstanding technical role model

Essential

Able to present a positive image of self, BioFAIR and the Earlham Institute

Essential

Commitment to a culture of openness, collaboration and excellence

Essential

Good time management skills

Essential

Strong relationships management skills

Essential

Proven track record as an effective leader

Essential

Earlham Institute

About the Earlham Institute
The Earlham Institute is a hub of life science research, training, and innovation focused on understanding the natural world through the lens of genomics.

We are building a future where the biology of any organism can be understood by analysing its genome. Our mission is to decode the scale and complexity of living systems so we can understand, benefit from, and protect life on Earth.

The Earlham Institute is based on the Norwich Research Park and is one of eight institutes that receive strategic funding from the UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council (BBSRC).

Our Science
Earlham Institute scientists specialise in developing and testing the latest tools and approaches needed to decode living systems and make predictions about biology.

We are home to state-of-the-art facilities and technology, creating a unique combination of expertise and infrastructure. We have dedicated laboratories for genome sequencing, single-cell analysis, engineering biology, and large-scale automation; as well as one of the largest supercomputing facilities for life science research in Europe. Our Advanced Training team also provides access to specialised scientific training to upskill the next generation of research and technical staff.

Our Culture
The Earlham Institute champions 'team science'. Our collegiate and innovative research environment comes with significant support, including a commitment to your professional development, research and administrative assistance, and opportunities to build collaborations with scientists and industry on the Norwich Research Park, across the UK, and internationally.

The Institute is also home to talented technical and operational staff, whose invaluable contributions enable our science to have the maximum impact. We aim to recognise, reward, and develop all staff and students so that every individual feels able to achieve their best with us.

We work hard to nurture an engaged and positive workplace, centred on core values that include openness, technical excellence, and collaboration. We attract staff from around the world who contribute to - and benefit from - an environment that enables them to deliver world-class science alongside a supportive and social community.

For more information about working at the Earlham Institute, please click here.

Further Information:

Our Vision and Mission

Our Strategy

Our Culture

Life at Earlham Institute

Department

BioFAIR

Living in Norfolk

• Visit Norfolk
• Schools in Norfolk
• Childcare in Norfolk

BioFAIR Architect

Applications are invited for two part-time secondments (up to 0.5FTE) for the role of BioFAIR Architects. These positions will involve supporting the initial stages of the technical design of the BioFAIR infrastructure and collaborating closely with the newly appointed BioFAIR Director.

Background:

BioFAIR is a new UK government-funded investment of £34M to develop and operate a federated digital research infrastructure connecting existing life sciences infrastructures which will largely be assembled through the integration of existing services, resources and knowledge.

BioFAIR is funded for five years and will focus on four core capabilities: Data Commons, Method Commons, Knowledge Centre, and Community Centre. 

The BioFAIR’s Commons will be shared places, built to incorporate FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles and allow researchers to collaborate and connect with colleagues to work on research projects.

BioFAIR will operate as a Hub and Spoke organisation. The BioFAIR Hub will be based at the Earlham Institute, who will be responsible for coordination, establishing and managing delivery partnerships and governance.

The role:

The Architects will be responsible for establishing a strong community-led culture of collaboration and collective responsibility.  They will leverage the skills and experience of the BioFAIR team to design clear modular architecture, based on existing tools and services, that will be deployed and operated at scale, and will be adaptable to the changing requirements of UK life science researchers.

These roles require a strong technical background gained in a research computing environment, enabling them to refine key technical requirements in partnership with stakeholders including technical teams across BioFAIR to ensure consistent and cohesive delivery. Building and maintaining excellent technical relationships will be essential, with a focus on creating a flexible, distributed infrastructure using the best capabilities from across the UK.

The objectives of the BioFAIR project are:

• Culture change: To drive adoption of FAIR principles and open data across the UK life sciences to provide high quality FAIR datasets ready for uptake and reuse.
• Defragmentation: To increase the coordination, collaboration and cohesiveness of the UK’s life sciences related data landscape, enhancing its effectiveness and efficiency.
• Access: To enable democratised access to data and data methods within UK life sciences via a national capability.
• Skills: To attract, develop and retain excellent research data management skills and capacity for UK life sciences.
• Data reuse: To improve the efficiency of research and enabling new research by increased re-use of data in the life sciences.

The ideal candidate:

The post holders will have a degree in a relevant discipline and practical knowledge of modern compute, storage and cloud technologies. It is an essential requirement for the successful candidates to have strong relationship management skills, experience of horizon scanning and delivery of new technologies.

Candidates will also be expected to have experience with stakeholder engagement and excellent communication skills.

Additional information:

These roles will be offered as part-time secondments for a period of six months.

Salary on appointment will be within the range £70,560 to £88,250 pro rata depending on qualifications and experience.

As a Disability Confident employer, we guarantee to offer an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for this vacancy.

The closing date for applications will be 14 February 2025.