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.