STEM/STEAM Engagement Officer

Overall Role and Context:

#SETUW A standby panel may be formed from which vacancies for this role may be filled.

Calmast is the South East Technological University’s STEM/STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) Engagement Centre, promoting all areas of STEM to all people across the South East of Ireland. Established in 2003, the Centre’s activities have scale and impact, now reaching over 40,000 annually in the region and over 500,000 nationally through Maths Week. This is through festivals (STEM and other cultural festivals) and schools programmes. The Centre also works with the arts to communicate STEM through STEAM projects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths).

The Centre nurtures a partnership approach and coordinates outreach activities across areas of sustainability, science, maths, computing, engineering, health sciences, and education and the SETU’s Access programmes, and works in partnership with many external groups to achieve inclusion, impact, scale and sustainability.

Calmast has developed a unique model for engagement across the region and all communities. Calmast acts as the hub for STEM in the South East working with local clusters of primary, secondary, HE and FE along with industry, state bodies, and community organisations. More about the centre can be found at www.calmast.ie.

Job Overview:

We are looking for an Engagement Officer with a passion for STEM Education and Public Engagement to join our dynamic team. The successful candidate will be working in a close-knit, inclusive environment with a supportive team that encourages creativity and collaboration.

The successful candidate will act as a project officer for engagement activities across the many Calmast programmes. This will involve working with multiple different stakeholders – presenters, partner centres, venues, funders, and a range of target audiences including schools and the public.

Key Responsibilities and Duties:

The STEM Engagement Officer will play a key role in the planning and delivery of school, community and festival programmes. This will involve scheduling, contracting, logistics, budget management, marketing, documentation, evaluation and reporting.

The STEM Engagement Officer will:

• Manage and grow our network of local STEM clusters

• Support the team in the development and delivery of the school and festival programme for a range of audiences

• Manage and implement the programme schedule including contracting of presenters, hire of venues, and liaise with stakeholders to ensure successful delivery

• Liaise with all partners and audience groups to ensure requirements are met for each programme

• Assist in financial management and reporting

• Plan, develop and implement the marketing and social media for all programmes, scheduling social media posts, developing content, and interacting on posts to boost engagement

• Have responsibility for the delivery of monthly newsletter and continuously work to improve open and engagement rate

• Perform any other duties as required by the Directors

Note: The successful candidate will be required occasionally to work outside of normal working hours (evenings and/or weekends) to facilitate engagement events.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Academic Qualifications

• Degree or equivalent in science, engineering, business, marketing, or events management, education or relevant discipline

Experience

• Proven ability to successfully plan, develop, manage and deliver festival/programmes with multiple partners and stakeholders

• Event management, PR, marketing including social media

• Financial management related to festival and programme implementation and report writing for funders and stakeholders

Specific Knowledge and Skills

• Project management skills

• Excellent team working skills while also being self-directed and capable of working independently

• Excellent communication skills, both written and oral, and a strong ability to build and manage relationships

I.T. Skills

• Expertise with Microsoft Office Suite, especially Word, Excel and PowerPoint

• Ability to manage social media platforms

• Ability to develop and post content on websites

Specific Personal Qualities

• Strong organisational and project management skills, with attention to detail

• Ability to work to tight deadlines and successfully manage several competing projects at a time while communicating frequently and concisely with other team members, partners and stakeholders

• Motivated, flexible and possess ability to use own initiative in a busy working environment

• Flexibility: The successful candidate may be required occasionally to work on weekends and evenings

Salary

The gross salary scale applicable to this post is IUA Research Assistant Scale €32,962–€42,943 as at 01/03/2025.