Senior Manager New Opportunities Development (m/f/d)

Your responsibilities

The New Opportunities Development Team scouts opportunities for EIT Health to engage in collaborative project proposals, diversifying the organisation’s portfolio of grant-funded projects. The Team leads efforts to build strong proposals and bids across a variety of funding instruments, ensuring opportunities are pursued, structured and developed from early ideas into concrete concepts with a high chance of award by the relevant funding bodies.

EIT Health delivers a portfolio of collaborative projects, supported by diversity of funding sources. To ensure a steady pipeline of new opportunities EIT Health is recruiting a Senior Manager, New Opportunities Development. In this role, you will work closely with colleagues in the New Opportunities Development Unit under the Director of Commercial and transversally with relevant business units at EIT Health that have potential to engage in EU funded projects. This role is not about inventing or delivering the underlying innovation itself, but about designing the structures, partnerships and funding pathways that allow others' innovations to be developed, tested and scaled through European collaborative projects. You will scout and prioritise funding opportunities (EU or national grants, philanthropic foundations, tenders), design new project applications, manage the end-to-end proposal development process, ensuring alignment with business needs target financing schemes.

Role responsibilities:

• Proactively scout for funding opportunities (European, national, private philanthropic) in collaboration with the relevant internal delivery and support teams and EIT Health’s ecosystem engagement staff.
• Support the prioritisation of EIT Health’s and its partners’ engagement in different opportunities, keeping a consolidated map of the funding pipeline and facilitating the relevant internal endorsement and approval processes for participation in grant applications.
• Lead and coordinate proposal development with different functions in the organisation, including project conceptualisation, proposal writing, budget preparation and consortium partner engagement.
• Act as the connective layer between innovators, funders and implementing teams, ensuring ideas are translated into fundable, well-structured project frameworks.
• Collaborate with external stakeholders (such as higher education institutions, research agencies, small and large companies, policy bodies, network organisations, etc.) to build collaborative consortia for joint proposals and bids, including leading on negotiations and alignment on roles, responsibilities and resources.
• Plan the transfer of awarded project proposals to the implementing units, including via administrative and contracting support.
• Maintain repositories, logs and dashboards of the opportunities pipeline and raise internal visibility of proposals under development.
• Collaborate closely with all business units at EIT Health to secure buy-in in proposals in the pipeline (asset management, profit growth, delivery, communications, stakeholder engagement, operations and finance functions) within the wider team and the overarching EIT Health organisation.
• Support post-project review, for internal learning.

Your skills & knowledge

• Master's degree or higher in business administration, innovation management, life sciences, engineering, or a related field, or substantial relevant experience.
• Outstanding stakeholder management and collaboration skills, with the ability to work across multidisciplinary and multinational teams and engage individuals with a broad range of backgrounds and interests through strong interpersonal skills, persuasion and negotiation aptitude.
• Deep understanding of what funding agencies and evaluators look for, including how to align proposal narratives, budgets and work plans with funder priorities and evaluation criteria. Proven ability to act as an orchestrator/facilitator of multi-stakeholder innovation projects, rather than as a technical contributor or inventor—translating others' ideas and technologies into fundable, structured project proposals
• Experience designing innovation support models, frameworks or programme structures (e.g., accelerators, funding calls, matchmaking mechanisms) rather than conducting the underlying research or technology development.
• Strong background in structuring and negotiating proposals as a project architect - defining scope, work packages, partner roles, governance rols, negotiating consortium agreements, partner contributions and funding terms, rather than contributing technical/scientific content.
• Demonstrated experience with European, national, public or private project applications, management and reporting processes, as well as knowledge of relevant European, national, public and private (e.g., philanthropic) innovation funding schemes.
• Proven experience with the EU Funding and Tenders Portal, with the ability to manage the proposal process independently.
• Familiarity with support tools that streamline proposal development (e.g., AI-assisted drafting tools, budget templates, consortium/partner databases, project management or CRM platforms).
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively in complex and innovative environments, cross culturally in an international public-private context.
• Ability to operate both on a strategic and operational level with a clear customer service mindset and in an autonomous and agile manner under a remote-first, fast-paced environment.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English; additional European languages are an advantage.
• Openness to undertake periodic travel internationally (primarily within Europe).

What we offer

• We are a 100% “Remote First” company, hiring in Germany, Spain, France and Poland.
• The possibility to join offices in various locations around Europe during business travel.
• Flexible working hours.
• Straight forward internal communication, non-hierarchical structure, and freedom to operate with autonomy.
• A large and vibrant network in the healthcare sector, with exposure to high-level and senior representatives from key players and influencers.
• The opportunity to work on critical projects of European interest, contributing to improving the lives of citizens and patients.