RCSI - Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
Organisation/Company RCSI - Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Department Human Resources Research Field Medical sciences » Medicine Researcher Profile Established Researcher (R3) Positions Research Support Positions Country Ireland Application Deadline 8 Jan *********:00 (Europe/Dublin) Type of Contract Temporary Job Status Full-time Hours Per Week 39 Offer Starting Date 9 Dec **** Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?
Other EU programme Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure?
No
Offer Description
About the Post
The Programme Manager will coordinate and deliver two national strategic genomics projects under Ireland's contribution to the 1+ Million Genomes Initiative: Genomics Data Infrastructure (GDI) and Genome of Ireland (GoI).
The 1+ Million Genomes (1+MG) Initiative is a European effort to enable secure cross-border access to genomic and clinical data, supporting better healthcare, research, and personalised medicine across participating countries.
Ireland's contribution focuses on building the infrastructure, standards, and datasets needed to integrate with this shared European genomics ecosystem.
The European Commission-funded GDI programme brings together national agencies, research organisations, and technology providers in 24 countries to provide a cross-border federated infrastructure for the querying and analysis of national genome collections, for advancing data-driven biomedical research and personalised medicine solutions to benefit citizens of Europe.
In Ireland, the programme is jointly funded by the European Commission and the Health Research Board.
Specifically, GDI will drive the development, deployment and operation of sustainable data-access infrastructures within each participating country including the legal frameworks, operational procedures and ethics principles required to foster and maintain citizens' trust in cross-border access to highly sensitive personal data.
Authorised data users, such as clinicians, researchers and innovators, will be able to advance our understanding of genomics for more precise and faster clinical decision-making, diagnostics, treatments and predictive medicine, and for improved public health measures that will benefit citizens, healthcare systems and the overall economy.
The Genome of Europe is a collaborative, multinational initiative aimed at creating a high-quality, large-scale reference dataset representing the genetic diversity of European populations.
This will be the first major dataset to be stored in and analysed through the GDI infrastructure.
The goal is to generate, assemble and make available for research use, harmonised, high-coverage genomic data that can be securely analysed across countries.
As part of this effort, participating nations contribute population-scale cohorts, associated sequencing and metadata, under common ethical, technical, and data-governance standards.
The Genome of Ireland is Ireland's national contribution to this initiative.
It aims to generate a representative genomic dataset of the Irish population, capturing unique genetic characteristics that can inform disease research, diagnostics, and precision health initiatives.
The project includes participant recruitment, sequencing, data processing, and integration with European datasets through the GDI.
Together, the Genome of Europe and Genome of Ireland strengthen Ireland's role in European genomics while enabling meaningful scientific and clinical insights at national and continental levels.
The Programme Manager will coordinate the GDI team on the following activities:
Delivering a national genomics plan for realisation in Ireland of the European 1+MG initiative.
This activity would seek to align with the National Strategy for Genetics and Genomics in Ireland and the National Strategy for Rare Diseases.
Completing the development, testing and validation of a proof of concept GDI node in Ireland, for performing distributed analysis, connected to the European Data Network.
This would in effect be a pilot Irish node for the federated European system, connecting genomic datasets.
This work will be conducted in partnership with the GDI-Ireland team at the University of Limerick.
Completing the Irish-specific data governance system needed to enable sustainable and secure sharing of genomic data.
This will involve finalising data governance practices for privacy protection in a data sharing/federated data environment.
This work will be conducted in partnership with the GDI-Ireland team at the Maynooth University.
Delivering training initiatives for the next generation of genomic clinician and data scientists.
This will develop training modules/activities that inform clinicians and data scientists and equip them with the skills and knowledge required to enable safe and effective sharing of genomic data.
This work will be conducted in partnership with the GDI-Ireland team at UCD.
The Programme Manager will coordinate the GoI team on the following activities:
Manage an efficient and effective project coordination ecosystem, that is aligned with national initiatives for genomics in Ireland.
This will include streamlining processes and building strong connections with national partners, research networks, and clinical stakeholders.
Manage and realise effective partnership with the public.
This will include supporting clear, accessible collaboration and engagement pathways, strengthening public trust through transparent communication, and creating ongoing opportunities for meaningful public and patient contribution.
Manage the ethical, legal, societal and data governance framework for the GoI study.
This will include supporting the establishment of policies and standards that ensure ethical integrity, legal compliance, robust data governance, and thoughtful consideration of societal impact.
Manage the participant recruitment strategy of the GOI.
This will involve supporting the project team and partners in the establishment of strategic collaborations and partnerships to enable recruitment.
Enable the generation and FAIRification, of the GoI whole genome sequencing dataset.
This will involve supporting the team in procurement activities, standards alignment, collaboration with relevant technical stakeholders nationally and across Europe in addition to fostering the link between GoI and GDI-Ireland.
GDI-Ireland is co-led by Gianpiero Cavalleri ( RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences (RCSI)) and Denis Shields (Univeristy College Dublin (UCD)).
The project team includes Aedin Culhane (University of Limerick (UoL)) and Markus Helfert (Maynooth University (MU)) and is assisted by a variety of national collaborators.
See /.
GoI is led by Gianpiero Cavalleri (RCSI).
The project team includes Russell McLaughlin (Trinity College Dublin (TCD)), Laura Whelan (RCSI), Aedin Culhan (UoL), Nuala Ryan (Public and Patient Involvement Contributor), Laura Brady (Irish Platform for Patient Organisations, Science and Industry (IPPOSI)), Ciara Staunton (RCSI), Eva Szegezdi (Universitgy of Galway (UoG)), Edmund Gilbert (RCSI) and Markus Helfert (MU).
The Role
The Programme Manager will have overall administrative responsibility for the promotion, management and reporting of both programmes.
Reporting to Prof Gianpiero Cavalleri, the role will involve close liaison will all partners and project staff (at RCSI, UoL UCD, Maynooth, UoG, IPPOSI) as well as the Health Research Board and various programme stakeholders.
In carrying out their duties, the successful candidate will work closely with other members of the Research Ireland FutureNeuro Centre including Operations, Communications and Research Finance offices.
The successful candidate will be based within the Operations team at the Research Ireland FutureNeuro Centre, hosted by RCSI at the Stephens Green Dublin office.
Some hybrid working is available to the successful candidate.
Principal Duties and Responsibilities
Programme Management of 1+MG initiative in Ireland (i.e. GDI-Ireland and GoI)
Support the Programme Director in the running of GDI-Ireland and GoI governance and management (including financial) activities
Maintain appropriate and effective communication, meeting and reporting relationships with all members of the GDI-Ireland and GoI consortia.
Monitor the implementation of the programmes and to ensure that the milestones and timelines are met
Support ongoing 360-degree evaluation of the programmes
Identify, assess, report and address programme risks
Address all practical issues in the running of the programmes.
Coordinate the development of a national genomics plan for realisation in Ireland of the European 1+MG initiative (GDI Activity 1 above).
This exercise will include
1) surveying and describing the existing and emerging Irish landscape in research and clinical genomics, and surveying retrospective and prospective datasets for potential research use via 1+MG, and
2) stakeholder (including HSE and public and patient) engagement to develop a national plan for storage and sharing of genomics data in Ireland, in context of 1+MG.
Assist with testing and validation of the proof of concept Irish GDI node (GDI Activity 2 above).
Coordinate closely with project staff at U Limerick and across the European GDI consortium to assist in the testing and validation of the Irish GDI node in the federated European system.
Support creation of an effective public partnership model (GoI Activity 2).
This task will enable clear pathways for public engagement, champion transparent communication, and ensure sustained public and patient input across all stages of GoI.
Assist in establishing the ethical, legal, societal and data-governance framework (GoI Activity 3).
This task will support the development of core governance components including data-access frameworks and contribute to policies that ensure ethical data use.
Coordinate design and implementation of an inclusive national recruitment strategy (GoI Activity 4).
This task will help establish effective recruitment partnerships, ensure broad geographic and community representation, and support approaches that enable equitable participation across Ireland.
Support generation and FAIR-ification of the GoI whole genome sequencing dataset (GoI Activity 5.
This task will assist with standards-aligned data production, technical coordination with national and European partners, and development of pathways to make GoI data FAIR and accessible.
Communication and Promotion
Enable the maintenance of the GDI-Ireland and GoI websites
Identify and manage opportunities to promote GDI-Ireland and GoI and publicise outputs
Maintain and expand social media activities
Coordinate key events and gatherings (e.g. networking, stakeholder engagement etc meetings)
Reporting to European and HRB Funding Agencies
Develop a close working relationship with the responsible European Commission and HRB Project Officers
Prepare and upload reports in European and HRB Grant Management Systems (portals) as per grant agreements.
Liaise with local academic hosts and project staff to capture inputs to reports
PhD or equivalent professional/working experience
Experience of public and patient involvement (PPI) in research, including the management of PPI-related processes.
Experience of national genome projects or 1+MG desirable
Detailed knowledge of GDPR, applied in the setting of human genomics.
Knowledge of the European Health Data Space Regulation.
Experience working with or building cloud computing infrastructures.
Experience of working with large genomic datasets.
3 years experiencein a research-related role and/or higher education environment.
Specific Requirements
3 years + experience in a research environment, ideally in one of the broad areas of genomics/genomics data analysis/disease genetics/population genomics.
Demonstrated project management, organisation and working to deadline skills with the ability to plan and progress work activities.
Proven leadership skills in supporting large multidisciplinary research programmes involving groups of investigators across international sites.
Experience in dealing with major funding agencies, or equivalent sponsor / public entities, national and international.
Demonstrated collaborative mindset and ability to work effectively and harmoniously in a team.
Experience working in a GDPR compliant environment
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