Director, Research and Strategic Initiatives

Based in Europe, the Eclipse Foundation is one of the world’s largest open source software foundations, with a proven track record of enabling community-led and industry-ready open source innovations used by millions of developers globally, earned over more than two decades. We host the Eclipse IDE, Adoptium, Software Defined Vehicle, Jakarta EE, Open VSX, and over 400 open source projects, including runtimes, tools, registries, specifications, and frameworks for cloud and edge applications, IoT, AI, automotive, systems engineering, open processor designs, and many others. Supported by over 300 members globally, the Eclipse Foundation has an established international reach and reputation.

The Eclipse Foundation is Europe's leading open source foundation for publicly funded research and innovation initiatives. Since 2013, we have participated in over 30 research projects in collaboration with more than 730 partners, with 15 projects currently active across critical domains such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, cloud computing, data spaces, software-defined vehicles, embedded systems, IoT, and open hardware. Our involvement in publicly funded research is a core pillar of our strategy. We help projects implement open source best practices, build sustainable communities, and accelerate research-to-market impact through effective dissemination and long-term open source stewardship. This role will shape the future of how open collaboration drives innovation at scale across Europe and beyond.


The Role

As a Director, Research and Strategic Initiatives, you will lead and expand our engagement in European and Member States funded projects. In this role, you will build strategic partnerships, lead our growing team of specialists, and engage with the rest of the Foundation’s leadership team to focus on initiatives that drive our overall mission. You will ensure the long-term success of the Foundation's engagement, and enhance our reputation with the European and national Institutions.
This position reports to the Vice President of European Operations and Policy and will lead a team of Research Project Managers who drive our involvement in specific European and Member States funded projects. You will oversee our various processes related to research and strategic initiatives, including overseeing the bid process, leading the engagement in consortia development, tracking and reporting of projects, and evangelizing our mission and our capabilities.

As the ideal candidate, you will have a strong understanding of the EU institutions, the overall EU research landscape, and ideally, have previous experience in building and managing consortia for European projects.


Responsibilities

• Manage partnerships: Oversee and cultivate relationships with stakeholders, establishing and contributing to project consortia. Cultivate and sustain strategic partnerships with stakeholders, including EU institutions, NGOs and RTOs.
• Manage the team: Lead the team responsible for preparing project proposals, responding to calls for tenders, and fulfilling project commitments. Coordinate efforts with other relevant teams in the organisation.
• Project proposals: Manage project proposals as a project partner or the project coordinator and lead consortium-building efforts across EU member states.
• Project Delivery and Reporting: Supervise the execution and reporting of EU and other projects, ensuring adherence to budgetary and planning requirements, and manage relationships with EU project officers.
• Representation: Represent the foundation at EU-level events and conferences, advocating for the advantages of open-source software and its contribution to innovation and competitiveness.
• Strategy: Monitor upcoming calls for projects and tenders, and recommend to management on go/no-go decisions. Offer analytical insights, strategic direction, and support to the foundation's leadership regarding EU project opportunities that advance open-source software development and adoption.
• Growth. Actively identify and seek new opportunities for strategic engagement within the open source communities to enhance our position as the leading European-based, globally focused open source foundation.

Qualifications

Required

• Minimum of 6-10 years of relevant work experience in EU projects or similar
• Demonstrated understanding of EU institutions and EU and government funding programs
• Excellent writing skills, including proposal and report drafting
• Strong management skills
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with experience building relationships with internal and external stakeholders
• Excellent analytical and strategic thinking abilities, with the ability to synthesize complex information and develop and communicate effective policy solutions
• Ability to work in a highly collaborative and distributed team

Preferred

• Fluency in English is required. Proficiency in an additional language, such as German or French, is a plus.
• Experience in working with the open source software ecosystem and understanding of its potential to drive innovation and economic growth in Europe
• Experience in coalition-building
• Existing network in the research community and to funding agencies like VDI/VDE Innovation (please replace VDI with EU based project control orgs)
• Education
• Master or PhD in Computer Science or equivalent

Location of Position - Remote in Europe


What We Offer

• Competitive salary and benefits.
• A flexible, remote-friendly work environment.
• Opportunities to engage with a vibrant, global community of open source contributors and developers.
• Professional growth and learning opportunities in the rapidly evolving field of open source software.

We offer highly competitive compensation along with a comprehensive benefits package. We thank all applicants for their interest; however, only those to be interviewed will be contacted. For more information about Eclipse Foundation, please visit our website at https://eclipse.org/

Eclipse respects the dignity and independence of people with disabilities and is committed to providing accommodation and support to persons with disabilities throughout any recruitment process, once made aware of a need for accommodation. If you require any special accommodation or support during the recruitment process, please indicate in your email to us.