King's College London

THIS VACANCY IS OPEN TO INTERNAL APPLICANTS ONLY

About us

We are inviting expressions of interest for the temporary position of Head of Intellectual Property (IP) & Licensing (IP&L). This role involves leading the operational activities of two teams:

• The existing team of seven IP & Licensing professionals responsible for identifying, prosecuting, marketing, and transacting IP assets from research conducted at King’s College London.
• A team of four IP Administration and Finance managers.

Responsibilities include providing interim operational leadership to the IP&L team, ensuring their performance and deliverables meet high standards. This involves collaborating with IP&L Managers to address complex issues related to due diligence, IP prosecution, monitoring, and commercialization, requiring detailed analysis of technical, contractual, stakeholder, and commercial factors.

Successful candidates will be expected to plan, execute, and report on their activities at a high-performance level, directly reporting to the Interim Director of King’s Innovation Catalyst. The Head of IP & Licensing will also liaise with the Assistant Principal (Innovation), the Entrepreneurship Institute, Vice Deans of Impact, and senior management as needed.

The ideal candidate will have significant experience in IP management and commercialisation, combining strong strategic and project management skills with diplomacy, negotiation abilities, and a commitment to exceptional quality standards in performance. They will relish collaborating both within King’s and with external partners, thriving in a dynamic and rapidly evolving environment.

About the role

The Head of Intellectual Property & Licensing is a broad role and encompasses a number of accountabilities. The following provides some of the specific accountabilities for this role but is not exhaustive.

• Provide leadership to the IP&L team to deliver a growth in the volume of new invention disclosures.
• Lead the team in assessing the commercial potential of IP opportunities, ensuring thorough reviews of scientific rationale, prior art, market size, ability to police, potential competition, and market penetration.
• Ensure IP&L Managers determine whether to seek IP protection for commercially viable opportunities.
• Support the team in prosecuting and maintaining IP, liaising with external patent attorneys, managing costs, and ensuring compliance with financial policies.
• Support the team in developing and presenting proposals on the commercial potential of IP opportunities to the IP Committee, ensuring that outcomes from the IP Committee are documented and any arising matters are addressed.
• Ensure King’s and third-party rights are protected during IP management or transactions, and support the negotiation and execution of agreements.
• Oversee data entry into IP management databases, produce progress reports, and ensure completion of statutory and internal reports by supporting the IP Admin team.
• Cultivate a culture of teamwork and collaboration by working closely within the IP&L team, the wider King’s Innovational Catalyst Department, and across King’s, ensuring seamless communication. Foster an inclusive and supportive work environment that encourages knowledge sharing and collective problem-solving.

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

This is a part time 0.5FTE role.

This is a fixed term post until  31/12/25

About you

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1.      Authoritative knowledge of intellectual property (specifically working knowledge of patent application process); translational grant funding; company grant funding; open innovation; new business development related to innovation; preparing technical marketing materials.

2.      Knowledge of licensing and/or research contract agreement terms between universities and industry.

3.      Demonstrable experience of brokering engagement with potential licensees or investors with regard to the commercial exploitation of early-stage physical science innovations.

4.      Demonstrable experience engaging in and leading the negotiation of license terms between university and industry partners and/or investors in relation to investment in spin-out ventures.

5.      Ability to collaborate across diverse teams and influence key decision-makers to drive business outcomes.

6.      Experienced in building personal credibility and trust within teams in relation to a specific activity or project.

7.      Experience in successful staff management with the demonstrated ability to exercise formal and informal leadership, to bring fresh thinking to tasks, to lead by example and supporting colleagues to succeed.

Desirable criteria

1.      Formal project management, finance, investment or intellectual property management qualifications.

2.      Proven experience of evaluating new technologies in all research disciplines and securing significant investments for stakeholders

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click “Apply Now”. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further information

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's.

As part of this commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion and through this appointment process, it is our aim to develop candidate pools that include applicants from all backgrounds and communities.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.

We are not able to offer sponsorship for candidates who do not currently possess the right to work in the UK.

This post is subject to Disclosure and Barring Service.