Description
Mission
The purpose of this role is to ensure professional, compliant, and execution-oriented award and post-award management of externally funded research projects, with a primary focus on German funding schemes. The Grant Manager will support Principal Investigators, Faculty, research teams, and administrative stakeholders in delivering funded projects on time, within budget, and in full compliance with funder, legal, financial, and institutional requirements.
This role is central to building Constructor Labs’ and Constructor University research operations capability and enabling high-quality collaboration between researchers, finance, legal, HR, external partners, and funding bodies.
Duties and Responsibilities:
Pillar 1: Pre-Award Grant Management
- Monitor funding landscapes (German Funding Scemes like DFG, BMBFTR, DAAD, and others); maintain the grants calendar and build a forward-looking application pipeline.
- Match funding opportunities to the research activities of Constructor Labs Principal Investigators (PIs) and Constructor University Faculty; initiate and coordinate proposal development.
- Co-develop competitive grant proposals with PIs and faculty, including budget design, and compliance requirements.
- Coordinate grant agreement and consortium agreement negotiations with Legal, and support partner contract negotiations where Constructor University or Constructor Labs leads.
Pillar 2 Post-Award Grant Management
- Own the full post-award lifecycle across a portfolio of funded research projects — from contract setup through implementation, reporting, amendments, and close-out — ensuring milestones, deliverables, budgets, and contractual commitments are tracked and met.
- Monitor project budgets, eligible costs, spending rates, and financial risks in close cooperation with Controlling Team; coordinate amendments, budget reallocations, extensions, partner changes, and other modifications with all relevant internal and external stakeholders.
- Prepare and coordinate scientific, narrative, and administrative reports for funders, including DFG, BMBFTR, DAAD, and other relevant funding schemes; track funder rules, reporting templates, and compliance obligations and ensure they are reflected in internal processes.
- Serve as the primary liaison between researchers, Finance, Legal, HR, consortium partners, and funders; support consortium management including partner reporting, documentation collection, and meeting coordination.
- Support the implementation and operation of standardised software and digital tools across all active projects, as approved by the Director of Research and Transfer.
Qualifications and Experience:
Experience:
- 2–5 years of experience in grant management, research project management, research administration, sponsored projects, or third-party funded project administration.
- Hands-on experience managing research projects in a university, research institute, RTO, technology organisation, or research-intensive environment.
- Practical understanding of German research funding systems, ideally including DFG, BMBFTR, DAAD, or comparable public funding programmes.
- Experience with project budgets, financial monitoring, eligible-cost rules, funder reporting, audits, and documentation standards.
- Experience working with Principal Investigators, researchers, finance teams, legal teams, HR, external partners, and funding bodies.
- Experience managing several projects simultaneously with different deadlines, funder rules, reporting cycles, and stakeholder expectations.
Skills & Competencies
- Strong project management discipline: able to convert complex grant agreements into clear workplans, deadlines, responsibilities, and reporting routines, and manage multiple projects in parallel.
- Strong understanding of financial and administrative compliance in externally funded research projects; able to manage budgets, forecasts, cost eligibility questions in a structured way.
- Strong stakeholder coordination and communication skills: able to work effectively with researchers, Finance, Legal, HR, external partners, and funders, and explain funding requirements in a practical, service-oriented way.
- High ownership mindset: proactively chases inputs, resolves inconsistencies, anticipates risks, and moves projects forward without waiting for perfect conditions.
- Excellent attention to detail, accuracy, and documentation habits.
- Experience implementing or operating research or project management information systems and building portfolio dashboards for leadership reporting is a strong advantage.
Education & Languages
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in natural sciences, business administration, economics, public administration, science management, project management, research administration, or a related field.
- Fluent German and English (written and spoken).
What This Role Is (and Is Not)
This role IS
- A hands-on pre- and post-award project management role for externally funded research projects.
- Operational, detail-oriented, and compliance-driven.
- Central to ensuring that funded research projects are delivered on time, within budget, and in accordance with funder requirements.
- A cross-functional role connecting researchers, finance, legal, HR, external partners, and funding agencies.
This role is NOT
- A purely strategic or advisory role.
- A fundraising-only or proposal-writing-only position.
- A senior RTO leadership role with responsibility for the full research funding strategy.
- A purely academic research role.
Similar jobs
Est. 60,000 EUR
About Constructor Constructor is an international ecosystem spanning education, research, and technology. It includes Constructor University Bremen, Constructor Tech, Constructor Knowledge, and partner entities such as E…
Est. 80,000 EUR
Figma is growing our team of passionate creatives and builders on a mission to make design accessible to all. Figma’s platform helps teams bring ideas to life—whether you're brainstorming, creating a prototype, translati…
Est. 55,000 EUR
About the Job Project A ist eines der führenden Venture Capital in Europa mit einem verwalteten Vermögen von 1,2 Milliarden Euro. Wir unterstützen ambitionierte Tech-Gründer von der ersten Idee bis zur Skalierung und ste…
Est. 70,000 EUR
About Rocket Factory Augsburg At Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), we have one clear goal: to create low-cost, flexible, and reliable access to space. We specialize in building small launch vehicles designed to deploy satel…
Est. 65,000 EUR
About Rocket Factory Augsburg At Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), we have one clear goal: to create low-cost, flexible, and reliable access to space. We specialize in building small launch vehicles designed to deploy satel…
Est. 60,000 EUR
As the Senior Executive Assistant to the Founder of Constructor Group, you will play a critical role in supporting a dynamic and fast-paced executive office. This is a high-exposure position requiring exceptional organis…
Est. 80,000 EUR
Raisin is the world’s leading platform for savings and investment products. Founded in 2012, the FinTech connects consumers with banks in the EU, the UK and the US. This gives consumers better interest rates and banks a…
Est. 65,000 EUR
Senior Project Manager (d/f/m) Hamburg, Berlin This position sits in our Experience & Engineering business unit. We deliver many services, from strategy and a performance-driven full-funnel approach to campaigning, e…
Est. 80,000 EUR
Your role As (Senior) Site Financial Controller (f/m/d/x) you will be part of the Controlling and FP&A team responsible for Factor EU. Our Team is tasked with safeguarding and owning the financial health of the compa…
Est. 40,000 EUR
About Rocket Factory Augsburg At Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), we have one clear goal: to create low-cost, flexible, and reliable access to space. We specialize in building small launch vehicles designed to deploy satel…
Est. 80,000 EUR
Join the team rewriting the rules in private markets. Moonfare delivers what few others can: the highly sought-after funds and hidden-gem investments that go beyond what most private banks offer. Every opportunity is sub…
Est. 80,000 EUR
About the Job We're looking for a motivated and result-driven Chief of Staff (m/f/d) to join one of our portfolio companies and drive "the Ops behind the Founders" and drive operational success at the company. The key ai…
Est. 70,000 EUR
Location: Germany - remotely We Are: RTB House is a next-generation performance demand-side platform (DSP) that uses proprietary Deep Learning AI algorithms to help brands grow. The company is the market leader in drivin…
Est. 80,000 EUR
Raisin is the world’s leading platform for savings and investment products. Founded in 2012, the FinTech connects consumers with banks in the EU, the UK and the US. This gives consumers better interest rates and banks a…
Est. 45,000 EUR
About the Position Constructor University, in collaboration with Constructor Knowledge Labs (CKL) and Constructor Technology (industry partner), invites applications for a PhD position in the field “Information Systems a…
Est. 80,000 EUR
Join the team rewriting the rules in private markets. Moonfare delivers what few others can: the highly sought-after funds and hidden-gem investments that go beyond what most private banks offer. Every opportunity is sub…
Est. 120,000 EUR
Join the team rewriting the rules in private markets. Moonfare delivers what few others can: the highly sought-after funds and hidden-gem investments that go beyond what most private banks offer. Every opportunity is sub…
Est. 91,500 EUR
Grafana Labs is the company behind Grafana Cloud, the fully managed observability platform trusted by more than 10,000 organizations to ensure reliability, resolve incidents faster, and optimize telemetry at scale. Built…
Est. 80,000 EUR
Join the team rewriting the rules in private markets. Moonfare delivers what few others can: the highly sought-after funds and hidden-gem investments that go beyond what most private banks offer. Every opportunity is sub…
Est. 80,000 EUR
About the Job As a key growth accelerator, A11 partners with Europe’s most ambitious startups and scaleups, corporates and SMBs to connect them with top-tier talent ready to make an impact. We’re looking for an experienc…
Est. 60,000 EUR
DEPT® is a Growth Invention company built to help the world’s most ambitious brands grow faster. Operating at the intersection of technology and marketing, our 4,000+ specialists deliver growth invention services across…
Est. 32,400 EUR
About Rocket Factory Augsburg At Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), we have one clear goal: to create low-cost, flexible, and reliable access to space. We specialize in building small launch vehicles designed to deploy satel…
Est. 60,000 EUR
About the Job As a key growth accelerator, A11 partners with Europe’s most ambitious startups and scaleups, corporates and SMBs to connect them with top-tier talent ready to make an impact. We’re looking for an experienc…
Est. 80,000 EUR
About Rocket Factory Augsburg At Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), we have one clear goal: to create low-cost, flexible, and reliable access to space. We specialize in building small launch vehicles designed to deploy satel…
Est. 80,000 EUR
The Role Engagement managers are the backbones of our firm and hold our project teams together. They lead partners, senior associates, associates and specialists, ensuring that everyone is working together towards the sa…
Est. 120,000 EUR
About the Job As a key growth accelerator, A11 partners with Europe’s most ambitious startups and scaleups, corporates, and SMBs to connect them with top-tier talent ready to make an impact. We’re looking for an experien…
Est. 80,000 EUR
Team Lead - Project Management (d/f/m) Hamburg, Berlin This position sits in our Experience & Engineering business unit. We deliver many services, from strategy and a performance-driven full-funnel approach to campai…
Est. 55,000 EUR
About the Job As a key growth accelerator, A11 partners with Europe’s most ambitious startups and scaleups, corporates, and SMBs to connect them with top-tier talent ready to make an impact. We’re looking for a motivated…
Est. 70,000 EUR
About Staffbase We inspire people to achieve great things together. Our mission is to help organizations unlock the power of inspirational communication with the first AI-native Employee Experience Platform. Our industry…
Est. 80,000 EUR
About the Job As a key growth accelerator, A11 partners with Europe's most ambitious startups, scaleups, corporates, and SMBs to connect them with top-tier talent ready to make an impact. We're looking for a motivated Ma…