Senior Project Manager

University of Oklahoma; Norman (OK); On-site; USD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

The University of Oklahoma's Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships is seeking a Senior Project Manager to lead preparation and submission of large, strategic funding proposals to federal and state agencies. This role collaborates with College teams, Technology Transfer and Partnerships offices to ensure proposals are complete, compliant, and impactful.

The Senior Project Manager will identify risks, build organizational structures, and contribute to sustainability planning

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in management or related discipline required.
• Minimum 6 years of related experience.
• PMP certification or equivalent experience is preferred.
• Experience coordinating with multiple offices and external partners.

Responsibilities

• Prepare and submit large strategic funding proposals to federal and state agencies.
• Identify and mitigate risks; build structures to support initiatives and sustainability planning.
• Collaborate with multiple offices (Technology Transfer, Partnerships) and Proposal Managers to ensure compliance.
• Report progress to executive leadership on milestones, burn rate, risk status, and deliverables.

Skills

Project Management

Cross-functional Leadership

Grant Writing

Risk Management

Proposal Management

Education

Bachelor's degree in Management or related field

Job description

Pay Range: Commensurate with experience

Benefits Eligible: Yes

Work Schedule: Monday – Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (may include some weekends)

Travel: May be required

Position Introduction

The University of Oklahoma's Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships is home to one of the most dynamic and growing research enterprises in the nation, driving discovery, fostering innovation, and building partnerships that create real impact across Oklahoma and beyond. Are you motivated by collaborative problem-solving and the chance to advance impact-centered research? Join a team that sits at the heart of OU's research mission to answer the question, Where Better Than Oklahoma? Why this is an exciting place to build your career: Broad impact. Your work will support faculty and researchers across disciplines, helping translate ideas into funded, compliant, and impactful programs. Collaborative culture. Work side by side with researchers, department leaders, external partners, and a dedicated administrative team committed to excellence. Room to grow. Join a mission-driven office that invests in its people and offers opportunities to develop expertise at the intersection of research, compliance, strategy, and partnership. This is more than an administrative role. It's a chance to be part of something larger. If you're ready to grow your career while helping OU researchers do their best work, we'd love to have you on our team.

Learn more at ou.edu/research

Senior Project Manager

The Senior Project Manager position supports the preparation and submission of large. strategic funding proposals to federal and state agencies. Such proposals will fund initiatives in alignment with OU’s research strengths and the OU strategic plan. These types of proposals typically involve more than one College as well as teams from Office Technology Transfer and Commercialization and the Office of Strategic Engagement and Partnerships. The Senior Project Manager must work collaboratively with these offices and Proposal Managers to ensure the proposal is complete and compliant with all sponsor requirements. The Senior Project Manager is specifically responsible for such areas as identification and mitigation of risk associated with the initiative, building new organizational structures to support the initiative (when called for), and sustainability planning that extends a strategic initiative beyond the life of any one grant. The Senior Project Manager will contribute to the successful execution of such awards, and/or facilitate the onboarding of other project managers around the institution for such purposes. A Project Manager is a partner to the key scientific personnel in project execution, and responsible for generating processes for reporting to executive leadership on progress to key milestones and deliverables, burn rate, risk status, and other key areas. Useful skills include an understanding of the university setting, academic grant writing experience or other experiences with writing grants and securing funding, a familiarity with state and federal funding agencies engaged in funding university research, and team-building skills, and exceptional cross-functional leadership skills to bridge communication gaps between technical researchers, external partners, and research support staff. Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, or similar, is useful but not required if other experiences provide similar skills and abilities.

Required Education

• Bachelor's degree in Management, Business Administration, or a related discipline relevant to the area of specialty.
• 6 years of related experience.

View full job description

Equivalency/Substitution

Experience or a combination of education & related experience can be considered in lieu of degree. A one-to-one ratio is used to determine the number of years of experience required in place of a degree.

Department Preferences

• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification or equivalent experience
• Grant-writing experience
• Experience working with state and/or federal funding agencies
• Team Leadership skills
• Strong Communication skills and abilities

Hiring Contingent Upon a Background Check: Yes