Senior Manager, Innovation Partnerships—Clean Energy, Critical Minerals and Mining

Job TitleSenior Manager, Innovation Partnerships—Clean Energy, Critical Minerals and Mining
Job CategoryM&P - AAPS
Job ProfileAAPS Salaried - Business Development, Level E
Job Family GroupStaff - Non Union
DepartmentLeadership | Innovation Partnerships
Compensation Range$10,459.67 - $15,675.58 CAD Monthly
The Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.
Job End Date
November 1, 2028
Posting End DateOctober 28, 2026
Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the Posting End Date.
This position is subject to the satisfactory completion of required background checks
This position is expected to be filled by promotion/reassignment and is included here to inform you of its vacancy at the University.
At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career.
Job Summary
The Senior Manager, Innovation Partnerships—Clean Energy, Critical Minerals and Mining is a senior business development and partnership architecture role within Innovation UBC. The role focuses on clean energy, critical minerals and mining, and advances partnerships in other industries by drawing on research strengths across the University. Reporting to the Associate Director, Innovation Partnerships, with dotted line reporting to the Associate Dean, Research and Graduate Studies, Faculty of Applied Science, the incumbent initiates, develops, structures, negotiates within delegated authority, and advances high-value partnerships with industry, government, not-for-profit organizations, foundations, and other external partners. The role is accountable for generating and advancing opportunities that convert UBC research strengths, innovation assets, talent, intellectual property, and facilities into strategically significant, externally funded collaborations that deliver measurable research, innovation, economic, environmental, health, and societal impact.
This position is focused on complex and multi-faceted public-private partnership opportunities, including multi-party research consortia, anchor partner relationships, challenge-based initiatives, and major strategic alliances. The Senior Manager applies scientific and/or technical fluency, business acumen, senior relationship management, opportunity qualification, and knowledge of sponsored research, technology transfer, commercialization, entrepreneurship, and public/private innovation funding models to create collaborations that are larger in scope, longer in duration, and more strategically important than incremental project-by-project research contracts. The Senior Manager is expected to independently generate opportunities for review, lead assigned initiatives, and drive them to completion with regular progress check-ins and direction from the Associate Director. The Associate Director retains ultimate responsibility for partnership strategy, escalated negotiations, institutional commitments, and signing authority.
Organizational Status
Internal
Reports directly to the Associate Director, Innovation Partnerships, and has a dotted line reporting relationship to the Associate Dean, Research and Graduate Studies, Faculty of Applied Science. Works with the Associate Dean to align relevant partnership opportunities with the Faculty’s research priorities and connect with its researchers, while maintaining a university wide partnership mandate across faculties, departments, research centres and campuses. Works closely with Innovation UBC Sponsored Research, Technology Transfer, Entrepreneurship, and other Innovation UBC colleagues to ensure external partners receive coordinated and coherent outreach and responses. Engages with UBC faculty, research clusters, research centres, institutes, Deans, Associate Deans Research, VPRI Office colleagues, Development and Alumni Engagement, Government Relations, legal and contracting resources, finance and administrative units, and other UBC staff in partnership-facing roles. May provide project direction and coordination to project managers, contractors, or other resources assigned to specific partnership initiatives. The role does not have overall responsibility for managing the Innovation Partnerships team.
Work Performed
Strategy, Planning, and Opportunity Development
Contributes to the development and execution of Innovation UBC's partnerships strategy, annual work plan, and strategic opportunity pipeline.
Independently identifies and generates new partnership opportunities for review, prioritization, and direction by the Associate Director.
Identifies areas where UBC research strengths, facilities, intellectual property, entrepreneurial capacity, and student talent can be combined into compelling value propositions for external partners.
Undertakes proactive external market discovery and environmental scanning to identify major industry needs, government priorities, funding opportunities, consortia models, and public/private innovation programs beyond recurring transactional mechanisms.
Develops opportunity briefs, partner value propositions, prospect strategies, and internal decision materials for high-potential strategic initiatives.
Assesses and prioritizes opportunities based on strategic alignment, partner readiness, potential funding scale, UBC research fit, complexity, risk, reputational value, likelihood of execution, and long-term impact.
Provides recommendations to the Associate Director on opportunity prioritization, partner engagement strategies, risk considerations, and next steps.
Maintains awareness of national and international innovation trends, major funding programs, sector roadmaps, policy priorities, and emerging research partnership models relevant to UBC.
Business Development and Senior Relationship Management
Builds, deepens, and manages relationships with external partners capable of supporting major research and innovation collaborations with UBC.
Leads partner discovery, outreach, needs assessment, opportunity framing, and early-stage business development activity for assigned strategic accounts and partnership opportunities.
Acts as a trusted intermediary between external partners and UBC researchers by translating industry, government, and not-for-profit needs into researchable problems and by translating UBC research capabilities into clear partner value propositions.
Develops and maintains account plans, relationship maps, opportunity roadmaps, and renewal or expansion strategies for anchor partners and consortium participants.
Prepares and delivers presentations, pitches, briefing notes, concept papers, and partner-facing materials that support strategic partnership development.
Drives assigned partnership initiatives toward completion, coordinating internal and external contributors, maintaining momentum, managing timelines, and providing regular progress updates to the Associate Director.
Coordinates with Development and Alumni Engagement on corporate and foundation opportunities that may include philanthropic, sponsorship, research, or blended funding components.
Coordinates with Government Relations and relevant academic and administrative units when opportunities involve government policy priorities, public funding, or public-sector partners.
Escalates difficult partner negotiations, complex conflicts, unresolved internal issues, or matters involving significant institutional risk to the Associate Director.
Consortium and Partnership Architecture
Designs and advances complex, multi-party, multi-year partnership structures, including research consortia, anchor industry partnerships, public-private initiatives, innovation hubs, challenge-based collaborations, and strategic alliances, within delegated authority and under the direction of the Associate Director.
Brings together UBC researchers across faculties, departments, research centres, and campuses to form credible, interdisciplinary teams around major external opportunities.
Works with researchers and partners to define partnership scope, strategic objectives, work packages, governance models, membership models, funding structu