University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust
Head of Innovation
The closing date is 11 May 2026.
The post holder will act as the lead for innovation development across the organisation, providing operational management and strategic leadership for the innovation agenda. They will create, implement and lead a long‑term Innovation Strategy that aligns with the Organisational, People, Research and ICT strategies. In partnership with our UHCWi programme, the innovation and improvement priorities will be aligned. The role will work across clinical specialisms and operational functions to lead, initiate, implement, organise and manage a broad programme of research and development activities related to innovation, including internal idea development, external innovation adoption and building an innovation community. The post holder will ensure these developments are evidence‑based, evaluated appropriately and result in high quality, sustainable service changes.
Main duties of the job
- Be responsible for the services provided by the team, assessing and monitoring resources to ensure that the appropriate capability, capacity, structure and culture is in place to enable the team to provide a proactive and influential contribution to delivering the Trust's strategic ambitions around innovation.
- Work with local and national academic and business leaders to promote and encourage new collaborations, attending and presenting at local meetings as required.
- Contribute to the delivery of corporate objectives by providing professional internal development opportunities; developing team credibility within the Trust in order to persuade, influence and affect change at senior executive and management levels.
Job responsibilities
- Oversee the collection, assessment and evaluation of enterprising and innovative staff ideas
- Design, implement and maintain an innovation ideas pipeline, and project management approach to ideas
- Oversee and organise the management of a portfolio of staff enterprise innovation ideas, monitoring and reporting on progress of these and any associated Intellectual Property. Reacting to changes in priorities and plans.
- Apply specialist theoretical knowledge on innovation management, user‑centred design and human factors principles to the development of ideas and the pipeline process. As well as employing research methodology knowledge to ensure evidence‑based practice and appropriate evaluation.
- Oversee the development of procedures for the effective identification and management of Intellectual Property
- Hold responsibility for ensuring intellectual policy is protected and opportunities for commercialisation are exploited
- Oversee the delivery of the Midtech Ltd contract as part of the wider embedded WMAHSN membership.
- Use networks and specialist knowledge to seek third party companies and academic partners to develop, research and commercialise ideas
- Use specialist expert knowledge to design and implement strategies to resolve novel and unexpected actual/potential barriers to innovation‑related activity
- Safeguard the interests of participants involved in innovation‑related activity by ensuring that relevant legislation, guidance and policies are complied with. Work with senior stakeholders to develop and implement new governance processes where needed.
- Provide advice and support to other members of staff with regards to innovation management. Mentor and supervise more junior Innovation team staff, acting as a source of expertise.
- Maintain strong relationships and positive communication channels with other key personnel.
- Provide reports on staff enterprise and associated intellectual property management.
- Utilise networks to spread successful innovation research development to elsewhere within the NHS
- Design, use and maintain electronic systems for managing project status and ensuring all project data is entered and stored appropriately
- Use electronic systems for the design and development of innovative digital tools such as apps
For further details please see the attached job description.
Person Specification
Qualifications
- see supporting documents
- see supporting documents
Experience
Knowledge
Skills
Commitment to Trust Values and Behaviours
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Employer name
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust
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