Academic Partnerships Manager

Argonne National Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory conducting world-class research to address the nation's energy, environmental, and security challenges.

The Academic Partnership Manager within Institutional Partnerships supports the development of strategic cross-laboratory academic partnerships by facilitating collaborative research experiences with select institutions, driving a regional community college engagement strategy, and aligning Argonne workforce opportunities with academic partners.

We invite you to apply for the Academic Partnerships Manager position. In this role, you will be responsible for developing and implementing a cohesive academic strategy that advances the laboratory’s scientific mission by fostering strategic collaborations with academic institutions and supporting the Laboratory’s intellectual property initiatives. You will contribute to shaping the department’s vision and strategy, set annual goals for the team, and lead the implementation of strategic initiatives. This position also involves aligning cross-laboratory activities with universities and regional community colleges, overseeing program development, managing data collection, tracking metrics, preparing reports, ensuring compliance with Argonne policies; as well as supervising and mentoring team members to ensure programmatic success. Additionally, you will interface with Laboratory Senior Leadership, university leadership, and other key stakeholders to advance program objectives and foster impactful collaborations.

Responsibilities Include:

• Inform and contribute to the department’s vision and strategy, ensuring alignment with Argonne’s research priorities and workforce development goals.

• Develop and implement a cohesive team strategy that integrates efforts across multiple university and community college laboratory partnership programs.

• Partner with senior scientific programs leaders and directorate and laboratory senior management to align university activities to the Argonne’s current and emerging research priorities and intellectual property goals.

• Manage business processes and contractual efforts with university partners including Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs), the Joint Appointment Program, and liaison with the Sponsored Research Office to ensure DOE approvals and appropriate contracts are in place, such as collaborative agreements, IP management plans, and use of research outcomes.

• Oversee all academic partnership programs (university partnership program, joint appointment program, visiting faculty program and community college programs) and develop programming to further support future meaningful academic research and workforce development collaborations. Manage a team of individuals, 400+ joint appointees, and other key stakeholders.

• Supervise team members, ensuring programmatic success and fostering a collaborative work environment. Set annual goals for the team and provide clear work direction to ensure successful execution of strategic initiatives and support individual development through mentoring and professional growth opportunities.

• Represent the department in briefings with leadership and senior-level stakeholders, occasionally stepping in for the Director as needed.

• Manage spending and budgets across programs, ensuring fiscal compliance and alignment with laboratory and sponsor guidelines, and develop budgets for future work and grant opportunities.

• Establish and track program metrics to measure impact, inform continuous improvement, and support data-driven decision-making, and oversee data collection, synthesis, and analysis across multiple programs and partnerships to produce comprehensive progress reports and dashboards.

• Use collective data to ensuring alignment with strategic priorities and inform future programming and activities.

• Develop, maintain, and enforce policies and processes associated with the portfolio of programs to ensure consistency and efficiency.

• Monitor program progress, identify challenges, and implement solutions to ensure timely and impactful delivery of outcomes.

• This hybrid position requires on-site presence a minimum of 2-3 days per week.

Position Requirements

• This position requires expertise in partnership development and contract management, ensuring alignment with the Laboratory’s strategic goals and compliance with relevant policies.

• A strategic and collaborative mindset; ability to partner with scientific researchers across multiple scientific domains to understand research needs, identify external partners who can provide complimentary expertise or facilities, and form the partnerships that bridge those.

• Experience in strategic partnership development within higher education, including the development and management of academic partnerships and collaborative research initiatives, collaborative research programs and grant development and proposal writing.

• Familiarity with innovation and intellectual property development, management and protection mechanisms and related contracts, preferably in research fields.

• Strong knowledge of emerging and advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, quantum information science and technology, microelectronics and semiconductors, and critical minerals and materials, along with an understanding of their applications, workforce implications, research ecosystems, and impact on national competitiveness and innovation.

• Demonstrated ability to lead teams and manage complex, multi-program portfolios within a matrixed environment.

• Strong communication and relationship-building skills, with the ability to interface effectively with senior leadership and external stakeholders.

• Experience in budget management, grant writing, and financial planning for multi-program portfolios.

• Experience in Microsoft Office, cloud-based collaboration tools, online application tools, web platforms, and social media is desired.

• Department priorities include leveraging AI capabilities to increase efficiencies; AI experience a plus but not required.

• Ability to collaborate across all levels of an organization and drive change effectively.

• Strong organizational skills with attention to details, excellent writing and communication skills; highly responsive.

• Ability to model Argonne’s Core Values: Impact, Safety, Respect, Integrity, and Teamwork.

• Master’s degree in a STEM field (e.g., Physical Sciences, Engineering, or Computer Science), or MBA with a minimum of 8-10+ years of professional experience in developing academic partnerships and collaborative research initiatives.

• While a PhD is not required, a strong foundational understanding of the scientific research environment is essential to effectively interface with researchers and faculty.

Job Family

Job Profile

Worker Type

Time Type

Please note that the pay range information is a general guideline only. The pay offered to a selected candidate will be determined based on factors such as, but not limited to, the scope and responsibilities of the position, the qualifications of the selected candidate, business considerations, internal equity, and external market pay for comparable jobs. Additionally, comprehensive benefits are part of the total rewards package.

Click here to view Argonne employee benefits!

As an equal employment opportunity employer, and in accordance with our core values of impact, safety, respect, integrity and teamwork, Argonne National Laboratory is committed to a safe and welcoming workplace that fosters collaborative scientific discovery and innovation. Argonne encourages everyone to apply for employment. Argonne is committed to nondiscrimination and considers all qualified applicants for employment without regard to any characteristic protected by law.