Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Officer

The Royal Society provides a range of grant schemes to support the UK scientific community and foster collaboration between UK based and overseas scientists. The Royal Society Grants team administers the Society’s grants programmes including the major research fellowships, international collaborations, capacity building initiatives, and innovation and industry programmes.

The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) team within Grants is responsible for defining and documenting outputs, outcomes, and impacts of the Society’s grant funding, reporting on these to our funders and other stakeholders, and working with the Society’s committees to ensure that our grant programmes are achieving their objectives and are running effectively. The MEL team commissions external evaluations of our grants programmes to help ensure our internal and external accountability for the funding we provide.

The MEL Officer is responsible for developing and maintaining data collection tools and processes, with a focus on award holder reporting, which we use to collect evidence of outputs, outcomes and impact of Royal Society’s grants funding. The successful applicant will need to be comfortable using narrative data to demonstrate this impact through creating case studies and researcher profiles, contributing to external communication of impact of our work, portfolio development and decision making. The role also supports the delivery of the grants evaluation programme, and other activities within the MEL team on an ad-hoc basis.

Reports to: Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager

Line manages: N/A

Hours: full-time, 35 hours per week

Location: Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AG plus hybrid remote working

Pay Band: C

Salary: £38, 955

Contract type: permanent

The application closing date is 11 May 2025 at 23:59 

Interviews will take place between 27 and 30 May 2025.

Please note that we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role.

• To ensure the Royal Society can effectively monitor progress and outputs of its grant holders, by developing and maintaining award holder reporting tools and processes. The role holder will work with colleagues from the MEL team, wider Grants team, as well as with our funders, to ensure that data collection is aligned with internal and external data requirements.
• To manage data collection of annual reports from award holders, and the collection of other monitoring data from applicants and award holders, ensuring that non-compliance is escalated as appropriate, that reports are reviewed appropriately, and contributing to data analysis (i.e. with Excel or PowerBI) when required.
• To work with colleagues from the MEL team, other colleagues in the Grants team and across the Royal Society, on identifying and developing narrative evidence of outcomes and impact of our funding, such as case studies and researcher profiles. These case studies feed into Royal Society impact reports and other Royal Society activities.
• To work closely with the MEL manager to deliver the evaluation programme, working with external evaluation providers and funders as needed, to ensure its effective contribution to the wider Grants governance structures.

Additional responsibilities and Tasks 

• To actively take part in delivery of other work relating to monitoring and evaluation of grants, including measuring the longer-term impact of the Society’s grant funding. 
• To provide support to the Society’s Evaluation Panel, as and when required.
• To support activities within the Grants team aimed at increasing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion including encouraging participation from under-represented groups and supporting the development and maintenance of policies and practices to foster greater inclusivity and to ensure that those who have followed a non-standard career path are encouraged to apply.
• To role model desired behaviours in line with the Grants Team Charter.
• To share experience and ideas with others in the Section and the Society and contributing broadly to the Royal Society’s mission and priorities.