Writer III / Proposal Development Manager (Research Administration)

We are seeking a  Writer III / Proposal Development Manager who will be responsible for creating a messaging strategy and developing clear and effective content for internal and external audiences. Internal audiences may include school/division/department leadership, faculty, students, staff, alumni, donors, and other stakeholders as needed. External audiences may include funding organizations, publications, government agencies, etc.

Writer III creates the content for reports documenting the designated area’s activities, presentations, and collateral to support the execution of the area’s strategic goals. The Writer III provides content for materials that support development and fundraising efforts, email campaigns about school news, etc. The Writer III works on print and digital collateral for activities and events for a variety of targeted audiences. This role will help ensure the efficiency and efficacy of internal communications between segments of the university community and that internal communications for the designated area align with central university communications.

The Writer III may contribute significantly to communication vehicles, articles, and official documents, reports and proposals reaching external audiences.

Note: This role may function as a Science Writer, a Technical Writer, or a Speech Writer

Proposal Development Manager

provides high-level scientific writing and proposal-development support to Johns Hopkins School of Nursing faculty, with particular emphasis on competitive federal applications, complex interdisciplinary proposals, center and program grants, training grants, and other strategically important funding opportunities. The role focuses on the intellectual, narrative, and strategic development of proposals: shaping the story, strengthening alignment with the funding opportunity, coordinating scientific contributions, and helping faculty produce clear, persuasive, and competitive applications. The position works in close partnership with faculty investigators, the VDR, the Senior Research Operations Manager, NORA, and other relevant School and University resources.

Specific duties & responsibilities:

- Develop a strategic internal communications calendar as needed.
- Communicate information of a highly complex nature in a clear, precise, and compelling way.
- Develop communications geared toward specific targeted audiences.
- Identify, research, write, and edit internal and/or external communications for various audiences and mediums.
- Develop and implement projects and ideas for disseminating news and generating communications materials for appropriate audiences regarding technical/scientific areas.
- Determine topics and themes for publication, provide input to publication design,oversee and edit the work of other contributors.

- May manage production schedules and publication budgets.
- Communicate with contributing stakeholders to provide advice on writing and instruction on writing skills ranging from grammar to writing strategies and overall content structure.
- Coordinate progress on documents involving multiple contributors and manage deadlines for delivery.
- Provide overall editing and feedback to stakeholder group members.
- Collaborate with subject matter experts to establish specifications and determine subject material to be created for proposal development.
- Proof, standardize, and edit proposal sections written by peers and other contributors to ensure alignment with the language of the proposal.

- Write assigned sections of proposals

- May conduct research for projects as assigned.

- Monitor and analyze developments and major issues in relevant sectors to ensure they are shared with targeted audiences as appropriate.
- Develop and sustain effective relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
- Work on special projects as requested.
- May direct and/or oversee the activities of support staff with related responsibilities.
- Other duties as assigned.

In addition to the duties described above

Scientific and Strategic Proposal Development

- Partner with faculty investigators to develop compelling, well-structured research proposals that clearly articulate significance, innovation, approach, impact, and fit with the funding opportunity.
- Help investigators translate complex interdisciplinary ideas into a coherent and persuasive proposal narrative, including the development and refinement of specific aims, project narratives, research strategies, training plans, center components, and other major scientific sections
- Provide substantive writing, editing, restructuring, and synthesis across proposal components to ensure consistency of terminology, logic, messaging, and scientific story across multi-author applications.

Complex and Team-Science Applications

- Provide intensive proposal-development support for large, multi-investigator, multi-school, center, program project, training, infrastructure, and other complex applications.
- Develop proposal outlines, writing plans, contributor assignments, internal deadlines, and integration strategies in collaboration with the PI and Senior Research Operations Manager. Manage internal deadlines as appropriate.
- Coordinate scientific content across cores, projects, aims, work packages, or other components of complex proposals.

Funding Opportunity Strategy

- Work with the VDR and faculty to identify and prioritize funding opportunities aligned with School strengths and emerging strategic areas.
- Interpret funding announcements and help investigators respond directly to review criteria and sponsor priorities.
- Participate in early-stage proposal planning so that applications are positioned strategically before writing begins.
- Help faculty determine when an idea may be better positioned as an individual investigator proposal, team-science application, center grant, training grant, foundation proposal, or other mechanism.
- Support the VDR in the administration of internal funding opportunities, including call for proposals, review committees, and selection notifications.

Faculty Proposal Support and Capacity Building

- Support faculty across career stages in the development of competitive, persuasive, and responsive proposal submissions.
- Organize workshops or writing sessions on topics such as specific aims, significance and innovation, responding to review criteria, resubmissions, and persuasive scientific writing, and develop reusable guidance, exemplars, checklists, and writing resources for common proposal components.
- Support resubmissions by helping investigators interpret critiques, develop response strategies, and strengthen revised narratives.

Quality and Institutional Positioning

- Maintain familiarity with major NIH, AHRQ, CDC, HRSA, PCORI, foundation, and other funding mechanisms relevant to nursing and health research.
- Support efforts to articulate in writing the School’s distinctive research capabilities, environment, resources, and interdisciplinary strengths consistently across strategic applications.
- Contribute to development of standard institutional language and resource descriptions that can be tailored appropriately for proposals.

Minimum Qualifications

- Bachelor's Degree in related field.
- Three years of related experience.
- Writing samples may be requested during the selection process.
- Additional education may substitute for required experience and additional related experience may substitute for required education beyond a high school diploma/graduation equivalent, to the extent permitted by the JHU equivalency formula.

Preferred Qualifications

- Advanced Degree in Health Sciences, Scientific Writing. or a related field.
- Demonstrated experience developing successful externally funded research proposals in an academic health-sciences environment.
- Strong working knowledge of NIH-style applications and federal peer review; experience with additional sponsors is desirable
- Exceptional scientific writing developmental editing, synthesis, and organizational skills.
- Ability to understand and communicate research across multiple disciplines and methodological approaches.
- Experience supporting large, multi-investigator or multi-component proposals strongly preferred.
- Ability to manage multiple concurrent deadlines while maintaining high editorial and strategic standards.
- Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work effectively with investigators at different career stages.

Technical Qualifications or Specialized Certifications

- Ability to manage basic figure design and experience with drawing programs such as PowerPoint or Adobe Illustrator and develop and understand the structure of illustrations related to the written communication.
- Experience writing and ability to provide technical feedback, fact checking, and clarification of written communication in specific scientific or technical areas, e.g. biomolecular engineering, biochemistry, biological sciences, systems chemistry, materials science, fluorescence and electron microscopy, data analysis, etc.
- Experience writing and managing peer-reviewed research articles for publications, handling data collection and dissemination, and experience writing and editing research grants for the NIH, NSF, and other federal agencies.

Technical Skills and Expected Level of Proficiency

- Editorial Research - Intermediate
- Grammar - Advanced
- Information Gathering - Intermediate
- Project Management - Intermediate
- Proofreading - Advanced
- Style Guides - Intermediate
- Version Control - Intermediate
- Writing - Advanced

The core technical skills listed are most essential; additional technical skills may be required based on specific division or department needs.

Classified Title: Writer III 
Job Posting Title (Working Title): Writer III / Proposal Development Manager (Research Administration)   
Role/Level/Range: ATP/04/PD  
Starting Salary Range : $64,470 - $112,850 Annually (88,660 targeted; Commensurate w/exp.) 
Employee group: Full Time 
Schedule : Monday - Friday 8:30 - 5:00 
FLSA Status: Exempt 
Location : School of Nursing  
Department name: Research Administration   
Personnel area: School of Nursing