Non-animal Technologies Network Coordinator

**About Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI)**

Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) was Australia’s first dedicated paediatric research facility and is now one of the world’s most highly regarded independent medical research organisations. Our research focuses on the four key areas impacting children’s health: cancer, genomics and genetic diseases, neurobiology, and embryology. Our strong international reputation is based on decades of significant research outcomes in these areas of specialty.

**About the NSW Office for Health and Medical Research (OHMR)**

NSW Health is focused on providing researchers, clinicians, managers and policy makers with the tools they need to translate research into innovative policy and practice to create healthier communities and deliver better patient care. The OHMR was established to implement the NSW Government’s strategic plan to build research capability in NSW. Key priorities include facilitating engagement of stakeholders; assisting with the development of state-wide strategic research priorities; providing a supportive policy framework; administering funding programs that support research infrastructure and innovation; supporting clinical trials and working with pillar organisations, local health districts, primary care providers and the non-government sector in the translation of research into clinical practice, healthy lifestyles and illness prevention.

**Non-Animal Technologies Network overview**

The newly formed Non-Animal Technologies Network (NAT-Net) is funded by the NSW Government, which has allocated $4.5 million for a targeted competitive research grant program to make ground-breaking discoveries in the field of medicine and health focused on facilitating collaboration, and advancing new technologies that do not rely on animal testing in medical research through networking, advocacy, and innovation.

This network will bring together national and international communities and capabilities to develop novel technologies to refine, reduce or replace animal testing.

The network will act as an umbrella to coordinate state capacity across a diverse range of new technologies including computer simulations, synthetic biology and cell-free models.

The initial focus of the network will be to develop complex in vitro models, to understand human disease and to support the development and testing of novel therapies. NAT-Net will harmonise ongoing research and infrastructure to support the development of complex in vitro models.

**About the role**

While the NAT-Net Coordinator will be employed by the Children’s Medical Research Institute, the role will be seconded into the Office for Health and Medical Research and managed by OHMR’s Principal Policy Officer, Advanced Therapeutics. This is a Full Time, two years Fixed Term Contract role based in St Leonards.

The NAT-Net Coordinator will need to coordinate the Network activities and promotions while ensuring compliance with relevant policies and legislation including meeting NSW and national requirements. The NAT-Net Coordinator is also responsible supporting the NAT-Net leadership, management, and governance, and the ongoing development of processes, documents and communication.

**Duties and Responsibilities**:

- **Independence & Decision-Making**:This role requires a high level of independence in role execution. The NAT-Net Coordinator must demonstrate confidence in making decisions and be able to prioritise key targets while managing multiple tasks. Given the emerging status of the Network and non-animal technology sector, the NAT-Net Coordinator must be comfortable with ambiguity.
- **Complex Stakeholder Engagement**: The NAT-Net Coordinator will need advanced expertise in managing a wide range of stakeholders, given the diverse and sensitive interests of stakeholders and the need to ensure that the work meets the objectives of NAT-Net.
- **Compliance Oversight**: The NAT-Net Coordinator will need to ensure ongoing compliance by the network partners with respect to relevant government, ethical, regulatory and institutional requirements.
- **Governance**: This Network was established in 2024 with some governance structures in place. The NAT-Net Coordinator may need to establish further committees and working groups. They will also support and document governance structures for NAT-Net (e.g., including Pillars and Executive), and perform secretariat duties for committees and working groups.
- **Communication Management**: Lead and coordinate communications, including newsletters, social media accounts, website content and reporting.
- **Event Organisation**: Plan and organize workshops and other organisational events.
- **Project and Initiative Management**: Manage NAT-Net initiatives and projects within the partner network.

**Essential Requirements**
- An ability to create processes and workflows whilst navigating ambiguity with multiple stakeholders with diverse agendas and viewpoints.
- Advance