National Embedding Lead (Scotland) - School of Social Policy and Society - 106008 - Grade 8

Position Details

School of Social Policy and Society

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £47,389 to £56,535 with potential progression once in post to £63,606

Grade: 8

Part Time, 0.5 FTE (18.75 hours per week) 

Fixed Term contract up to December 2027 

Closing date: 7th September 2026

Interviews are scheduled for Tuesday 6th October 2026

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

Background

IMPACT (‘Improving Adult Care Together’) is a UK-wide centre for implementing evidence in adult social care, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, and the Health Foundation. IMPACT is an ‘implementation centre’, building on knowledge gained from different types of research, the lived experience of people drawing on care and support and their carers, and the practice knowledge of social care staff.

Its aims are to enable practical improvements on the ground, and make a crucial contribution to longer-term cultural change, by:

• Increasing the use of high-quality evidence, leading to better care practices, systems and outcomes
• Building capacity and skills in the adult social care workforce to work with evidence of different kinds to innovate and deliver better outcomes
• Developing relationships between a wide range of stakeholders across the sector, to improve outcomes for people who draw on services and their families
• Improving understanding of what elements of evidence implementation do and do not work in practice, and using this to overcome barriers

Role Summary

As IMPACT evolves there is a substantial and growing evidence base generated from a series of local change projects across the UK.  Our delivery projects implement research findings to drive change and innovation in practice in social care organisations. The national embedding team look for opportunities to sustain, scale and spread what we have learned, to get this embedded in national policy and practice to drive long-term innovation.

IMPACT is expanding its’ national embedding team with the addition of a second National Embedding Officer, and three senior part-time Embedding Leads for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.  These senior appointments will be managed by the Deputy Head of National Embedding with a dotted line to the national lead for IMPACT in their nation.  The role holder will be able to draw on some support from the national project officer for their nation.  This is a unique opportunity to take practical evidence of what works in adult social care and maximise the difference it makes to people’s lives by finding ways to influence policy and practice.

The National Embedding team is led by IMPACT’s Deputy Director Ewan King (Chief Executive, Shared Lives Plus) and Deputy Head of National Embedding Dr Laura Griffith.  In addition to working closely with IMPACT’s Deputy Head of National Embedding, the postholder will develop a close working relationship with the central IMPACT team (especially the Communications and Engagement Manager, Strategic Communications Advisor and Head of Operations) as well as IMPACT’s delivery and national leads.

Remote working will be supported within this role; however, the role holder will be expected to spend a minimum of two days twice per year (inclusive of travelling time) at an in-person meeting whose location will rotate around the nations.  There will be monthly team meetings that can be attended on-line.  Occasional travel to IMPACT events and/or specific delivery project meetings will be required, and will be reimbursed from the usual place of work.

Main Duties

The National Embedding leads Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales will include:

• Delivering significant knowledge transfer activities in partnership with people who draw on care and support, carers, care workers, public services, government, care commissioners, regulators and other national adult social care stakeholders; this could be in the form of policy round tables, events, policy advice and/or other influence and engagement activities.
• Drawing on both an in-depth knowledge of adult social care policy and practice priorities, plans and strategies in their nation and IMPACT’s theory of change to co-ordinate, plan and organize IMPACT priorities for knowledge transfer activities, and translating these into a plan to sustain, scale and spread implementation of research findings over a number of years across the adult care sector in their nation.
• Leading on the development and forward planning of embedding related public engagement/outreach activities aligned to government and sector priorities - working closely with IMPACT Comms and Engagement Manager/team.
• Leading on forward planning for implementing embedding activity in their nation over a number of years, by aligning their plans to IMPACT’s four aims and sector and government priorities. 
• Developing and maintaining high level networking links and collaborations, with government, regulators, social care leaders, professional bodies and improvement agencies across the four UK nations.
• Supporting the IMPACT Head and Deputy Head of National Embedding in shaping debates through expert contributions to media (which may be print, broadcast, online and social media) and policy debate, aimed at long-term and sustained change. 
• Contributing to options appraisal being developed by the IMPACT Head and Deputy Head of National Embedding for their nation.
• Working collaboratively with a broad range of partners in their nation, helping to deliver a demonstrable impact from local delivery projects in the long term by planning and organsing their priorities in alignment with partners’ strategic priorities.
• Supporting the IMPACT Head and Deputy Head of National Embedding on important sectoral bodies (e.g. professional/service/educational regulators, government committees, arms-length bodies etc) and acting as deputy/supporting their attendance when required.
• Ensuring that our national embedding work is co-produced with IMPACT’s Co-production Advisory Group, people who draw upon care and support and carers – and that our embedding work draws on lived experience and practice knowledge to maximise its impact/live out our values.
• Taking collective ownership of challenges faced by IMPACT and its partners and working with colleagues to develop solutions.
• Actively manages equality, diversity and inclusion through monitoring and evaluation and actively challenging unacceptable behaviour in line with university policies. 

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Educated to Higher Degree level (or equivalent qualifications) plus significant relevant practical experience – where no equivalent qualification is held substantial practical relevant experience and expertise in a series of progressively more demanding roles will be required;
• Substantial experience of implementing evidence informed change in an adult social care or other public service setting
• In-depth knowledge of government and sector long-term priorities for adult social care in their nation
• Ability to plan a programme of knowledge mobilisation activities with the potential to deliver long-term sustained change in adult social care practice and policy.
• Substantial experience and demonstrable high level of achievement in knowledge mobilisation and similar activity
• Substantial experience of applying and/or developing and devising successful models, techniques and methods
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, including orally and in writing, with the ability to influence and negotiate effectively with a range of stakeholders based on credibility and trust
• Substantial experience of working collaboratively internally and externally with key stakeholders to achieve measurable outcomes;
• Ability to work on own initiative to plan and deliver high quality outcomes working within agreed parameters
• High level of self-motivation and personal accountability with ability to plan and deliver goals to deadlines under pressure
• Ability to identify issues with the potential to impact on protected groups and take appropriate action 
• Other relevant criteria from our equality and diversity knowledge, skills and experience document.

Informal enquiries to Sheena Robertson, email: [email protected] 

View our staff values and behaviours here

Use of AI in applications: We want to understand your genuine interest in the role and for the written elements of your application to accurately reflect your own communication style. Applications that rely too heavily on AI tools can appear generic and lack the detail we need to assess your skills and experience. Such applications will unlikely be progressed to interview.

We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website.