Position

To strengthen our team, DRIFT is seeking to our support team and business operation. To this end we are recruiting an operational coordinator for improving monitoring within new and on-going projects (including internal and external reporting on progress), and support staffing between these projects. In this capacity you will operate under the direct supervision of our business director, working closely together with the office manager and financial officer. You will have a pivotal role between project staff and financial-administrative affairs and keep an overview of the very diverse project portfolio of DRIFT and the consultants, researchers and trainers working on in these projects. You will ensure the quality of our project administration, guard project progress, providing administrative guidance and supervision in tenders and grant applications (together with more senior staff). At the same time, you will help to match project demands with what staffers can and want to contribute to these projects, allowing staffers to develop themselves further and guard against excessive work pressure.

Your daily tasks primarily concern these three:

1.    Project management

DRIFT is involved in about hundred projects a year, varying from a short a one week in company training, to five year European research projects, and everything in between. These projects go from the stage of acquisition lead, through tendering, contracting, progress monitoring, and reporting (internally and externally). In all of these stages, you will keep overview, handle routine matters and make sure that the rest of the management and support team is where necessary timely involved. Project leaders are primary responsible for the progress of their own projects, but it will be your task to pro-actively discuss and signal progress issues, prepare progress and prognosis reports for both our financial administration and external funders (to their specifications) and to prepare together with the project leader tenders for low complexity projects. 

2.    Project staffing

One crucial aspect of project management, is project staffing, which goes far beyond rostering on the basis of availability. Project staffing at DRIFT is about matching abilities and affinities of employees, with the necessity of the project staffing projects require. For this you will need a good feeling for how thirty driven, smart, headstrong researchers, advisors and teachers are doing. In project planning and staffing you will thus balance financial necessities, with taking good care of DRIFT’s human capital. You are able to pick up early signals of work overload and other issues, and you know how to as best as possible make sure each DRIFTer has the type of projects and roles he or she excels in, or can develop in. You thus are able to switch easily between planning spreadsheet and human conversation.

3.    General support of organizational affairs

Next to these primary responsibilities, you will help out with other management and support tasks, for example helping out the financial officer during peak pressure in financial reporting. Eventually we expect you could take on additional responsibilities, depending on your competences and ambitions, in for example IT, privacy & compliance, legal, financial analyses and/or more with respect to developing DRIFT as an organization and supporting Drift staff in their development within DRIFT.  

Requirements

·         You have a pro-active attitude and strong communication skills, including informal communication within the organization.

·         You have a college degree 

including a B.Sc./B.A. or a higher vocational degree (HBO)

·         You have at least 4 years full-time (or >0,6 FTE) work experience

·         You have significant experience in coordinating, guiding or leading projects in research, consultancy, education or other field with similar project dynamics.

·         You can effortlessly and accurately work with planning and reporting tables (e.g. in Excel)

·         You are able to perform in an informal culture and project-based, and self-funded organization.

Not required, but possible pluses are:

·         A graduate level degree (M.Sc./M.A.)

·         Direct experience in doing research, trainings or consultancy

·         Training or experience in coaching, HRM or personal development of employees

·         Education, training or experience in financial management/administration

·         Fluency in English and/or Dutch beyond the minimum requirements

·         An demonstrable involvement in a more sustainable world

Language requirements

·         You are (near-)native speaker (CEFR C2) in Dutch OR English

·         You are reasonably proficient (CEFR B2) in Dutch AND English 

o   Alternatively, in one the languages you are now at level B1 but willing to improve within one year to B2 (which will be a condition to prolong your contract).

You do not need to provide proof of language proficiency beforehand, but we might ask you (at our expense) to take a language assessment test. Also note the job interview will at least be partially in Dutch. For a self-assessment table for the CEFR Framework, see here: http://tiny.cc/CEFRSA.

Fixed-term contract: Temporary (one year), with intention to prolong.

Conditions of employment

In accordance with our employment policies, you will be offered a temporary contract for one year, with the strong intention to prolong and eventually develop into a permanent contract and position. This is for assessment by the employer.

DRIFT offers a dynamic and challenging environment and has attractive employment conditions, which include a holiday allowance of 8 %, a good leave arrangement, a flexible pension plan and various collective insurances. Employees can use the sport accommodation and the university library. The salary for this contract is subject to salary scale 10 CAO-NU (currently €2,709 to €4,274 gross) depending on experience and other competences. The Collective Labour Agreement of the Dutch Universities (CAO-NU) is explicitly not applicable.

Please note that only EU citizens, or others already in the possession of a Dutch resident permit and a work permit (that is not employer-based) are eligible. If you have any doubt, please check with us before applying.

DRIFT B.V. (an affiliate of Erasmus University Rotterdam)

DRIFT is an affiliate of the Erasmus University, operating as an action research institute. Founded in 2004, DRIFT evolved from a Dutch based research institute to an internationally oriented institute with worldwide networks, projects and contributions in the field of sustainability transitions. We are an ambitious and interdisciplinary group of researchers, trainers and consultants that combine academia with reflexive activism. Our backgrounds range from innovation studies and environmental science, to sociology, political science, policy analysis, geography, anthropology, engineering, history, as well as economics and philosophy. DRIFT aims to understand, facilitate and accelerate sustainability transitions, by putting scientific theory into practice and by implementing and developing innovative governance approaches, such as Transition Management. Next to (action) research, DRIFT advises governments and companies within the Netherlands, Europe and non-European countries. Furthermore, DRIFT is actively involved in education through multiple courses, coaching trajectories, workshops, in-company trainings and creative educational experiments.