Writer III / Proposal Development Manager (Research Administration)

Johns Hopkins, founded in 1876, is America's first research
university and home to nine world-class academic divisions working
together as one university.

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

The successful candidate(s) for this position will be subject to a
pre-employment background check.

If you are interested in applying for employment with The Johns
Hopkins University and require special assistance or accommodation
during any part of the pre-employment process, please contact the
HR Business Services Office at jhurecruitment@jhu.edu. For TTY
users, call via Maryland Relay or dial 711.

The following additional provisions may apply depending on which
campus you will work. Your recruiter will advise
accordingly.

During the Influenza ("the flu") season, as a condition of
employment, The Johns Hopkins Institutions require all employees
who provide ongoing services to patients or work in patient care or
clinical care areas to have an annual influenza vaccination or
possess an approved medical or religious exception. Failure to meet
this requirement may result in termination of employment.

The pre-employment physical for positions in clinical areas,
laboratories, working with research subjects, or involving
community contact requires documentation of immune status against
Rubella (German measles), Rubeola (Measles), Mumps, Varicella
(chickenpox), Hepatitis B and documentation of having received the
Tdap (Tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) vaccination. This may include
documentation of having two (2) MMR vaccines; two (2) Varicella
vaccines; or antibody status to these diseases from laboratory
testing. Blood tests for immunities to these diseases are
ordinarily included in the pre-employment physical exam except for
those employees who provide results of blood tests or immunization
documentation from their own health care providers. Any
vaccinations required for these diseases will be given at no cost
in our Occupational Health office.

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