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Reports to Co-Executive Director
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Contract type: 50 % (17.5h/week), initially fixed-term up to August 2026 with the potential opportunity to renew or increase hours
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Pay scale:
- UK: £59,317.32 GBP/year pro-rated
- Contractor: $3,590.51 USD/month
Most of our FSCs and the team you are working with are based in the GMT time zone, so we expect the majority of your working hours to overlap with that time zone.
Job description
OLS (Open Life Science) is dedicated to fostering open science practices and empowering researchers, particularly those from underrepresented groups and Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). We aim to build a more equitable and accessible research ecosystem through training, mentorship, and community building and providing fiscal hosting services to projects and communities to support their growth. We are looking for a Fiscally Sponsored Community (FSC) Manager to support OLS in building out its support for FSC. Working with the Co-Executive Directors, this position contributes to the development and implementation of organisational strategies, policies and practices around fiscal sponsorship.
Required personal capabilities
- Master’s or PhD in any discipline involving research data analysis, or equivalent relevant experience.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
- Experience working with diverse, globally distributed teams
- Background working in research administration, research finance, project/grant management and/or international collaborative projects with multiple stakeholders.
- Knowledge of funding mechanisms and grant opportunities in research.
- Budget development and oversight experience.
- Proven ability to juggle multiple deadlines at a time, while maintaining sharp attention to detail
Desirable:
- Active open science advocacy to promote open science/source practices, including reproducibility, FAIR principles and research best practices.
- Experience working in the UK and knowledge of UK legal and regulatory rules
Duties / key responsibilities
- Act as the first point of contact for FSCs and communities interested in working with OLS
- Build strong, long-term relationships and maintain frequent contact (e.g. through regular meetings)
- Reviewing and advising on governance processes and documentation
- Support FSCs in their grant applications, especially with a focus on reviewing budgets ensuring they are appropriate and in line with the funding criteria and OLS’s internal policies
- Reviewing non-grant contracts (e.g. consulting).
- Creating and maintaining documentation on OLS’s processes around FSC
- Liaise with the OLS Finance team, especially re:
- Timelines and workloads
- Ensuring processes are followed and communicated.
- Liaise with OLS leadership around employees and contractor onboarding.
- Engaging on best practices and experiences with other fiscal sponsors.
How to apply
Timeline:
- Announcement for applications launch: 27 August 2025
- Applications due: 16 September 2025
- Shortlisted applicants notified: 8 October 2025
- Interviews: Oct-Nov 2025.
Submission instructions
Please submit a CV and a cover letter (2 pages max) covering your relevant background and experience as outlined above.
Make sure to include details concerning your:
- Experience with supporting grant applications, especially creating budgets.
- Experience working with diverse, globally distributed teams.
- Skills and any identified gaps.
Submission form: https://tally.so/r/wLr4Ol
For any questions about this call for application s, please contact jobs@we-are-ols.org
Selection Criteria
All submitted applications will be reviewed by OLS’s Co-Executive Director, Finance Manager and Research Fellow: Research Funding Ecosystem.
Evaluation Criteria:
- Relevant experience and qualifications.
- Understanding of OLS’s role in the research funding ecosystem.
- Potential to contribute and scale OLS’s FSC offering.
OLS’s original core mission focused on mentoring and training in Open Research. Eventually we added two other pillars of activity:
- Research on open practices
- Incubation of open initiatives
As part of the incubation pillar, people who had participated in our training initiatives often asked for advice in taking the “next steps” for their projects - e.g. applying for grants or awards, paying contributors for their time, and handling the tricky legal parts. Eventually, we began fiscally sponsoring other small organisations, beginning with RSE-AUNZ. In the Open Science and Open Research domains, other fiscal sponsors you might have heard of are Code for Science and Society, Software Freedom Conservancy, NumFocus, Open Collective, and Community Initiatives. Unlike these (mostly) USA-based initiatives, OLS is based in the UK, which is why it is helpful if applicants have UK-specific experience.
Read our fiscal sponsorship page and sponsorship policies for more info.
Download a copy of the job ad on Google Docs