About The Cambridge x Manchester Partnership launched in August 2025, The Cambridge x Manchester Partnership is the first cross‑UK innovation partnership. The partnership is designed to expand and strengthen innovation ecosystems in both cities, drive investment, and define a new model of collaboration for the UK. Activities will focus on maximising the impact of complementary innovation assets in both Cambridge and Manchester across a breadth of sectors, including life sciences, quantum, climate tech, defence, material science, and creative industries. As well as activating both ecosystems through collaborative initiatives, the partnership will help start‑ups and scale‑ups to secure funding and grow, attract innovation‑intensive FDI to the UK, and stimulate investment into R&D. Underpinning all the outcomes, the Partnership will share best practice for delivering ecosystem collaboration, and inclusive and good growth to benefit other cities, the wider higher education sector, local and national government, and the community at large. The collaboration is driven by a dedicated team who will run a programme of specially designed activities, projects and initiatives.
The Role:
You will lead on telling the stories developed through the teams’ work between the local businesses, universities, local communities, government and investors across both Cambridge and Manchester. You’ll be delivering and supporting the external profile of the partnership. This role will play an important part in strengthening the visibility and impact of the Partnership across both ecosystems.
Some of the things you might find yourself doing include:
* Working closely across the team in both ecosystems to identify opportunities for storytelling.
* Developing close relationships across the key stakeholder comms teams (including Universities, Innovation ecosystem organisations such as Unit M and Innovate Cambridge, AstraZeneca, industry partners and the Board), and with the ecosystem players whose stories we are sharing.
* Supporting the ongoing development of the comms strategy, and overseeing delivery either directly, with partners, or with suppliers.
* Maintaining the Partnership style guide and ensuring consistency of use across all stakeholders.
* Monitoring communications outcomes, gathering insights and actioning feedback to continuously improve delivery.
* Alignment of plans with the Unit M and Innovate Cambridge strategies.
* Developing and sharing stories, learnings and impact from the partnership’s core activities and sharing them through social media, thought leadership pieces and case studies.
* Promotion of a unified events calendar developed in both cities.
* Supporting delivery of events with the rest of the team, including helping define content, promotions, and marketing materials.
* Ensuring timely delivery of collateral, including the major collateral as part of the bid outputs i.e. playbooks, case studies, investment prospectus.
* Ensuring ongoing internal communications of the Partnership work.
What You’ll Bring:
* Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to work effectively with diverse stakeholders, including senior leaders.
* Experience in developing and delivering high‑quality communications in a complex, fast‑paced setting.
* Experience in content creation (e.g., writing, managing video production, graphic design, websites).
* Excellent communication skills, with the ability to engage and convene stakeholders from different backgrounds with different levels of academic and non‑academic expertise.
* Experience working across multiple stakeholders or partners would be beneficial.
* Strong marketing communications skills, ideally a generalist who can cut across most disciplines.
* Excellent writing and editing skills, with the ability to adapt content for different audiences and channels.
* Good understanding of brand, tone of voice and content‑led communications.
* Experience using insight and analytics to inform content and communications delivery.
What You’ll Get:
* 29 days annual leave, plus bank holidays and December closure days.
* Generous pension scheme.
* Flexible and hybrid working.
* Access to a wide range of staff benefits, including discounts, wellbeing support and development programmes.
Explore full benefits: www.manchester.ac.uk/connect/jobs/benefits-working-here
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