PERSON SPECIFICATION

We want to employ people with a wide variety of experiences. We welcome applications from all sections of the community regardless of sex, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, trans identity, relationship status, religion or belief, caring responsibilities, or age. We are particularly seeking applications from candidates who come from backgrounds that are underrepresented at the University, including people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities.
We are looking for a team player who will work with colleagues to provide a great service to colleagues.
This role may be an opportunity for you to build on your experience from working in a previous administrative role or environment with particular interest in research finance showing your transferable skills and aptitude to be successful in the role. You should be enthusiastic about developing your knowledge and skills to become a valued member of the team.
Your application will be assessed against the following essential and desirable criteria for the role. Please copy and paste this section into a new document and give clear examples of how you can evidence meeting each criterion by writing under each one. You can draw on elements from any aspect of your life (e.g. work, home, education/qualifications or community life) if you focus on their relevance to the role.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Key Duties

• To establish working relationships with key contacts on your allocated research projects, developing appropriate communication links with the University’s Schools/ Directorates and outside bodies, as required, as well as regular liaison with other Finance sections.
• To maintain updated rules, terms and conditions of the research funder and advise academics and project partners of their obligations under same.
• To gather and analyse data from research project financial reports, monitor project budgets, and advise principal investigators of any estimated under or overspends so as to enable informed future project decisions.
• To ensure that all financial records relating to the University and research partners are maintained in order to satisfy both internal and external audit requirements, including advising on eligibility of all project expenditure and the requirement regarding supporting documentation, whilst acting as the main contact point between the University and research project partners on financial issues.
• To prepare financial claims and cost statements, both electronically and manually in a timely manner, for both internal and external review, whilst ensuring claims from the external funder are in line with either the University’s Financial Regulations and Policies or agreed funder’s Terms and Conditions.

Specific Duties

• Prepare and submit reconciliations, claims and invoices:
• Perform financial reconciliations and prepare monetary claims for projects in line with funder deadlines (co-ordinating where Cardiff is the lead).
• Ensure claims and invoices are complete and accurate and, following line manager review, submit to funders in line with strict funder eligibility rules and deadlines. Complete claims on various external funder systems as required
• Project Financial Management & Control:
• Regular communication (including meetings with your line manager) with departments across the University (for example: ongoing project management; or closedown).
• Identify changes to projects (for example: in the start or end date) and implications of these through close communication with departments. Act, as appropriate, in agreement with or through escalation with line manager.
• Knowledgeable on funder rules and University Financial Regulations and Policies, including effectively advising departments on application of these, and identifying related issues, escalating to line manager as necessary; keeping up to date with changes and communicating these, and the implications of them, to internal stakeholders as appropriate.
• Monitor research projects which have ended and ensure that appropriate actions are taken for a prompt and orderly close for archiving.
• Liaise with accounts receivable and funders regarding debt chasing and escalate issues where necessary to your line manager.

Audit

• Support the Research Finance Manager to arrange audits, prepare documentation for these, and respond in a timely manner to basic audit queries from external or internal auditors.

General Duties

• Abide by all University policies and undergo appropriate personal and professional development.
• Perform other duties which are not included above, but which will be consistent with the role.
• Uphold the Professional Services Values & Behaviours or local equivalent.

HOW WE WILL SUPPORT YOU IN PERFORMING THIS ROLE

We want to support and develop you in the role, using a combination of the following to help you reach your full potential.
1. Regular one-to-one meetings with your team leader.
2. An experienced and supportive team around you.
3. Support to undertake job-relevant training and development, as identified by your Line Manager. This could be informal or could be an apprenticeship leading to a formal qualification, such as Business administration NVQ.
4. A staff mentoring scheme.
5. Support to learn Welsh or to update language skills.
About the Research Service
Cardiff is an ambitious and innovative university located in a beautiful and thriving capital city. Our world-leading research was ranked 5th for quality amongst UK universities in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework and we provide an educationally outstanding experience for our 30,000 students. With an annual budget in excess of £500 million and around 6,000 staff, Cardiff is a member of the Russell Group of the 24 leading UK research-intensive universities. The University has 24 academic schools grouped into three colleges: Biomedical & Life Sciences, Physical Sciences & Engineering and Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences.
The University’s ambition is to rank consistently among the top 100 universities in the world. Cardiff is also developing its Innovation System through a focused programme of investment in people and infrastructure. Research funding secured from competitive, external sources exceeds £100 million annually and the University aims to grow this further through winning grants from a wide range of national and global sources.
The Research Service supports the University’s research community in initiating and delivering research and innovation activities. Led by the Director, Vanessa Cuthill, we provides services via over 100 expert staff organised in five specialist teams: Research Grants Office; Research Integrity, Governance and Ethics; Research Development; Research Commercialisation and Impact; Research Strategy and Operations and Business Engagement and Partnerships. The Department works closely with academic and professional services staff from all areas of the institution.