Assistant Director, Post‑Award Research Operations

Nanyang Technological University

Singapore

On-site

SGD 110,000 - 170,000

Full time

14 days+

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Job summary

NTU in Singapore seeks an Assistant Director, Research Operations Management to lead post‑award research operations, diagnose issues, route work to the right streams, balance workloads, and design service standards harmonising across units. The role acts as the operational hub between Finance, HR, Legal, and the Research Support Office to ensure compliant, timely, and consistent service delivery.

Key duties include leading Team B, triaging cases, designing SOPs and SLAs, harmonising legacy

Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree in business administration, finance, public administration, or a related field (or equivalent professional experience in research administration).
Minimum 5–7 years of progressive experience in research administration or research operations, with substantial post‑award responsibility.
Demonstrated experience leading or supervising an operational team or workstream.
Knowledge in research funding lifecycle and post‑award processes: award setup, budgeting, modifications, reporting, subawards, and closeout.
Familiarity with sponsor regulations and policies affecting financial and operational management.
Proficient in electronic research administration and financial systems and data extraction for metrics.

Responsibilities

Lead Team B’s day‑to‑day operations: set weekly priorities, assign cases, and monitor queue health.
Produce a weekly workload review showing volume, age, bottlenecks, and coverage gaps.
Balance workloads across staff by skill level and case complexity; rotate high‑risk queues to prevent burnout.
Maintain a skills matrix and cross‑training plan for backups.
Run short operational stand‑ups to triage exceptions and unblock stalled cases.
Operate a single intake channel for operational exceptions and route cases with clear handover notes.
Design and maintain SLAs for key request types (budget adjustments, staffing changes, contract amendments, reporting escalations).
Harmonise legacy practices across schools/units into one set of operating rules where feasible.
Review SLA performance monthly and adjust resources or steps to meet targets.
Serve as primary operational contact for Finance, HR, Legal, and RSO on post‑award issues.
Convene short working sessions to resolve multi‑party exceptions and share risk summaries.
Maintain an operational risk register with likelihood, impact, owner, and mitigation status.
Map current‑state workflows, propose and implement process improvements, and pilot changes.