Associate Director Digital CMC Research Operations

The Associate Director for Digital CMC Research Operations is an exciting opportunity to take on a senior leadership role within the CMAC medicines manufacturing research centre. The postholder will work closely with the Director to shape our research strategy and contribute to growth across our research and skills programmes, ensuring strong engagement with external academic groups, research organisations, and relevant stakeholders across the Medicines Manufacturing research, development and innovation sector. The postholder will lead the development of standardised approaches for managing and maintaining the Centre’s digital CMC research operations, ensuring best practices and supporting effective dissemination. You will work with colleagues to develop and ensure effective utilisation of digital infrastructure and data-centric digital CMC operations and ensure delivery of high-quality, co-created research across the Hub as well as CMAC’s growing portfolio. Our goal is to advance our end-to-end value chain for Industry 5.0 drug substance and drug product development and manufacture.

Responsibilities

• Provide leadership for digital CMC research operations across the Centre’s portfolio of funded projects and innovation initiatives (as outlined above).
• Work with the Director to deliver and periodically refresh the Centre’s research strategy, focused on digital transformation of CMC through Quality by Digital Design (QbDD) and enabling technologies.
• Deputise for the Director in internal and external meetings when required and independently representing the Centre at senior-level engagements, advisory boards, and consortia.
• Advocate across centre project teams for the adoption of standardised approached to deliver CMAC’s cyber-physical architecture. Enable the effective and consistent implementation of digital infrastructure, including ELNs, research data fabric, computational resources, workflows, ontologies, and knowledge graphs and other required resources.
• Working closely with key staff to develop and agree protocols, standards and architectures for the Centre, ensure effective and consistent digital integration across CMAC’s technology portfolio spanning CMC Workflows, DataFactoriesTM and analytical methods; Digital Twins, Data Fabric and MicroFactories for end-to-end processing ensuring traceability, regulatory readiness, and scalability.
• Ensure priorities identified by Director are effectively implemented across portfolio including the development and integration of cross-cutting digital capabilities including molecular modelling and simulation, crystal structure prediction, in silico process design with a particular focus on supporting Crystallisation Classification System (CCS) development.
• Champion Industry 5.0 principles —sustainability, resilience, and human-centricity— across CMAC staff, partners, stakeholders and projects to drive their adoption across digital platforms and Centre-wide CMC research operations.
• Lead or support teams of technical staff (e.g., digital scientists, data engineers), ensuring high-quality delivery and professional development.
• Collaborate with senior colleagues across the Centre, including Academic Associate Directors, Finance Manager, Industry Engagement Leads.
• Ensure compliance with institutional and Centre-specific policies covering: Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI), Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), Health, Safety and Environment (HSE), data and digital asset governance, and financial management.
• Represent the Centre in national and international networks, regulatory forums, and innovation communities.
• Contribute to funding proposals, strategic roadmaps, white papers, and reporting frameworks as required (e.g., to UKRI, Innovate UK, or international funders).
• Engage in continuing professional development

For full details on the post, and CMAC, please visit: Associate Director Digital CMC Research Operations — CMAC