Project Manager – University of Surrey

British Deaf News; Guildford; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 60,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Generous remuneration package

Access to staff development opportunities

Relocation assistance where appropriate

Job summary

British Deaf News is seeking a Project Manager for the University of Surrey, working within the Centre for Vision, Speech, and Signal Processing. This role supports innovative projects that develop AI for sign languages, including SignGPT and real-time translation collaborations.

The ideal candidate will possess project management experience and knowledge of Deaf culture. Benefits include a generous remuneration package and opportunities for professional development in a world-class research environment.

Qualifications

• Experience managing multi-partner, multi-million-pound projects.
• Knowledge of Deaf culture and awareness of British Sign Language.
• Experience working within collaborative research projects.

Responsibilities

• Support major research projects in generative AI and computer vision.
• Act as a single point of contact across multiple collaborative projects.
• Ensure operational aspects of projects run smoothly.

Skills

Project management experience

Knowledge of sign language

Communication skills

Education

Professional project management qualification

Job description

Project Manager – University of Surrey

The Centre for Vision, Speech, and Signal Processing is seeking to recruit a Project Manager to support major research projects in generative AI, computer vision and LLM development. You will join an established research group within a highly rated research department, with an excellent computing and software infrastructure for first class research, modern facilities and close links with industry. Surrey’s Institute for People-Centred AI builds on 40 years of work into foundational AI at the Centre for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing (CVSSP) which is ranked 1st in the UK for Computer Vision and in the top-5 for both Audio-Visual AI and Robotics (CS Rankings, Sept 2024).

The post sits within Professor Bowden’s sign language research group at CVSSP, which leads a portfolio of major collaborative projects developing AI for sign languages. These include SignGPT, a five-year EPSRC Programme Grant with the University of Oxford (Prof Zisserman) and UCL (Profs Cormier and Woll) building tools to translate automatically between spoken language and photo-realistic sign language video in both directions; UMCS, a UK and Japan collaboration developing real-time sign language translation in everyday conversation; and a Google.org-funded project reducing the cost of sign language translation through AI. We are seeking an experienced project manager to act as a single point of contact across this portfolio, ensuring that the operational aspects of these multi-partner, multi-million-pound projects run smoothly.

The applicant should have project management experience, and ideally a professional project management qualification. The post is funded through SignGPT and is offered for 2 years (in the first instance) at 0.5 FTE. However, there is scope for a larger FTE and/or a longer-term contract where appropriate, given the breadth of the group’s activities. The work will involve Deaf people and users of British Sign Language (BSL), and through wider collaborative links, users of other international sign languages. Knowledge of sign language and awareness of Deaf culture would be advantageous, as would a working knowledge of BSL. Deaf candidates with suitable project management experience would be welcome to apply.

The University of Surrey is a global university with a world-class research profile and an enterprising spirit, located in one of the safest counties in England, within 35 minutes of London by train and minutes away from the Surrey Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Recent investments have seen the opening of a world-class Sports Park and important updates to central facilities.

We can offer a generous remuneration package, which includes relocation assistance where appropriate, an attractive research environment, the latest teaching facilities and access to a variety of staff development opportunities.