Senior Communications Officer (5 year fixed term contract) at University of the Witwatersrand

Key Purpose:

• The Senior Communications Officer will play a central role in a key objective of the organisation: to deliver cutting edge academic research and to make it available and accessible to a broad audience. The Senior Communications Officer will develop the GCRO’s internal and external communications strategy to build its reputation for research that is relevant both to government and other researchers. The Officer will manage communications functions on research and the activities, vision, values and mission of the organisation. This role will  include supporting the implementation of multimedia communication, science writing, social media and visual storytelling. The Senior Communications Officer will liaise with the GCRO partner organisations’ communications teams to ensure collaboration and the boosting of messaging.

Key roles:

• The Senior Communications Officer will be a highly motivated and multi-skilled professional who will:
• Develop and implement a comprehensive GCRO communications and research dissemination strategy.
• Oversee and manage the GCRO website and its regular updating.
• Oversee and manage the GCRO’s social media channels.
• Oversee and manage dissemination mailshots for GCRO’s outputs.
• Oversee and manage the news section of the website, and the regular publication of newsletters.
• To facilitate science writing to ensure that technical academic research can be disseminated in an accessible form to a general audience.
• Develop marketing materials and relevant communications approaches for GCRO partners locally and internationally.
• Undertake media management and the development and maintenance of traditional and social media partners for GCRO’s activities and key events.
• Oversee all logistics and media management for GCRO events.
• Manage effective stakeholder engagement through the GCRO website subscriptions, hosting of delegations, and work in collaboration with a range of audiences and research partners, locally and internationally, in pursuit of the GCRO communications and research dissemination strategy objectives.
• Participate in the effective dissemination of the GCRO’s research outputs to stakeholders and society at large, including visualisations (data visualisation, visual storytelling, GIS and mapping), and means to boost the GCRO brand and messaging on social media.
• Participate in the GCRO production management team, and develop and manage a panel of diverse production experts including graphic design, editing, typesetting, etc.
• Manage training for the GCRO researchers on media messaging and interviews, ensuring the GCRO brand and key messaging is amplified.
• Explore and establish more opportunities for re-publication of GCRO’s shorter and more visual outputs in mainstream media.
• Identify opportunities for opinion pieces in GCRO’s forthcoming outputs and support researchers with the publication of opinion pieces, by building stronger relationships with journalists and increasing the opportunities.
• Building and maintaining measurements of impact for all GCRO communications and dissemination, including media monitoring.

We are looking for (selection criteria):

• Applicants with at least 5 years experience in organisational communications and/or science communication and a relevant degree qualification (NQF level 7).
• Applicants with experience in translating research into public policy and publicly accessible documents.
• Academic and/or policy related communication experience will be an advantage.
• Ability to engage at a high level with a wide range of academic, research, government and civil society stakeholders.
• Excellent writing, proof-reading and editing skills in English for both scientific and popular audiences.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Demonstrable good network in the media community and online publication skills.
• Strong organisational skills and ability to produce under a heavy workload with competing priorities.