Academic Director for Cardiff Futures

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Academic Director for Cardiff Futures
Cardiff University aims to become a key site for the creation of more just, sustainable and inclusive futures.  We aspire to work with imagination and creativity alongside local, national and international partners, to foster new ways of thinking and acting in an increasingly complex world.   Our mission is to co-create and share new knowledge to deliver a better world for future generations.  

In this context the University is seeking to recruit a distinguished professor with proven leadership experience to establish and oversee the delivery of our proposed new Futures initiative. This initiative will embed interdisciplinary, creative, long-term futures thinking and activities across the university (both academic and professional services), and ensure that the University’s many and varied contributions to creating better futures are joined-up and cohesive.  Development of effective internal and external working relationships will be a key aspect of the role.  

This role will report to the Vice-Chancellor and initially will be a fixed term post for four years.  It will be under-pinned by a permanent professorial appointment in a relevant discipline.  

Salary range:  £77,711 - £135,297 per annum, depending on experience and Professorial Banding

Date advert posted: Friday, 20 March 2026

Closing date: Friday, 3 April 2026

Cardiff University is committed to supporting and promoting equity and diversity and to creating an inclusive working environment. We believe this can be achieved through attracting, developing and retaining a diverse range of staff from many different backgrounds who have the ambition to create a University that seeks to fulfill our social, cultural and economic obligation to Cardiff, Wales, and the world.  In supporting our employees to achieve a balance between their work and their personal lives, we will also consider proposals for flexible working or job share arrangements.

Applications may be submitted in Welsh, and an application submitted in Welsh will not be treated less favourably than an application submitted in English.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities:

Leadership

•    Provide strategic leadership for the phase of establishment and delivery of the new Futures initiative, including a detailed implementation plan, to keep Cardiff at the forefront of innovative futures thinking.
•    Ensure the initiative is a catalyst for a futures-focused research culture that actively facilitates interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral dialogue, cultivates long-term and systemic thinking, and models agility and ingenuity in addressing society’s biggest challenges.
•    Play a leading role in relevant curriculum development at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, ensuring Cardiff students develop the capabilities needed to address long-term, systemic and complex challenges with creativity and understanding, in collaboration and across disciplines.
•    Work with the global-civic Professional Services teams to co-ordinate activities and events that will raise the profile of Cardiff University’s futures-facing activities.
•    Liaise with the Wales Future Generations Commissioners Office and other relevant external bodies to promote partnership working, align agendas and identify emerging challenges through a futures focus
•    Be a visible academic leader in development and delivery of futures work with academic and professional staff colleagues, gathering intelligence on emerging themes and topics, convening communities around these themes and topics.
•    Collaborate with the new Institute for Flexible Lifelong Learning to develop and implement a programme of futures-based short courses 

Teaching and Research

•    Play a leading role in enhancing and developing futures scholarship, pedagogy and research with the aim to produce high-impact outputs
•    Lead successful funding bids / industrial collaboration / commercial and public funding to underpin futures development where relevant.
•    Contribute to the teaching and leadership of related programmes at all levels, including PhD students, through cutting-edge content and innovative pedagogy.
•    Work collaboratively and successfully across and externally to the University on projects that have public value

Job Category

Business / Strategic Management