Innovation Specialist
About the role
Staff - Non Union
Job Category
M&P - AAPS
Job Profile
AAPS Salaried - Business Development, Level A
Job Title
Innovation Specialist
Department
Partnerships & Community Engagement | School of Biomedical Engineering | Faculty of Medicine
Compensation Range
$6,251.00 - $8,986.00 CAD Monthly
The Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.
Posting End Date
February 11, 2026
Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the Posting End Date.
Job End Date
Ongoing
This position is expected to be filled by promotion/reassignment and is included here to inform you of its vacancy at the University.
This position is a 0.5 FTE part-time ongoing position.
At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career.
Job Summary
The School of Biomedical Engineering (SBME) is a partnership between the Faculties of Medicine and Applied Science. The SBME is a nucleus for education and training, research, and innovation in biomedical engineering; creating new knowledge, new academic and training programs, and fostering translation and innovation. The need to enable venture creation during the challenging inflection point where innovations are translated from academic labs into companies is being increasingly acknowledged. Recognizing this need, a key strategic priority for the SBME is to foster and support an entrepreneurial culture of invention, incubation, interaction, and collaboration. In partnership with Innovation UBC, SBME Innovates was established in 2019 as UBC's wet-lab incubator space that offers laboratory space, equipment access, building services, operational and partnerships support, at a stage when innovators grapple with scarce access to funding resources. The overarching, long-term goal of SBME Innovates is to bring a steady influx of ventures with ambitious, disruptive ideas that need critical support at the translation stage to get off the ground, and help them to successfully transition into their own space with a sustainable path forward.
SBME Innovates
Four UBC spin-off companies are currently housed within SBME Innovates. This current pilot phase paves the way for a significant expansion in 2026. We envision a significant expansion of SBME Innovates within its current location to accommodate 10-12 ventures at a time. Part of this expansion will entail expanding SBME's incubation efforts to accommodate ventures in the imaging & computational biology and human interfacing devices research themes of the School. This may be done through SBME’s expanded footprint, and/or via partnerships with other UBC units.
Summary of Requirements
The SBME Innovation Specialist will work specifically with members of the School (faculty, postdoctoral fellows, students, and staff), to:
- inspire an entrepreneurial mindset;
- identify potential startup opportunities;
- shepherd startup opportunities towards and through Innovation UBC’s venture building resources.
The SBME Innovation Specialist brings industry-specific knowledge, experience, and networks, works directly with SBME ventures/founders as they drive towards their commercial milestones. The SBME Innovation Specialist will lead the operations, implementation, partnership building, and long-term financial sustainability planning for SBME Innovates, and will grow SBME's culture of innovation and commercialization through various education and engagement initiatives, as well as support programs for SBME researchers.
Organizational Status
The SBME Innovation Specialist reports to the Strategic Partnerships Manager.
Work Performed
- Works closely with leadership at the SBME, leverages entrepreneurship expertise to lead the day-to-day operations (in collaboration with SBME's Building Team), planning, and growth of the SBME Innovates, SBME's in-house wet-lab venture incubator facility.
- Implementation of a commercialization pipeline for the SBME, including education initiatives and support from the early stages of research to technology spin-off and venture incubation.
- Develops and implements a long-term financial sustainability strategy for SBME Innovates, and grows partnerships to enable this strategy.
- Identifies prospects, seeks out and secure sponsors for SBME Innovates through mutually beneficial partnerships.
- Proactively seeks to identify SBME research and technologies with potential for future company creation, and support faculty members and research trainees with these goals.
- Acts as the point person for resident and prospective ventures, mentors, and partners.
- Liaises with internal (prospective ventures, UBC Treasury, Innovation UBC, VPRI) and external (venture capital firms, industry partners, sponsors, other incubators and entrepreneurship enablers) stakeholders on all matters pertaining to SBME Innovates and commercialization training initiatives for the SBME.
- Develops and delivers programs that expose SBME researchers to leading practices and strategies in entrepreneurship, company creation, commercialization, and other forms of knowledge translation, including leading the commercialization stream of SBME Propels, and entrepreneurship-themed sessions within and outside of major events (e.g. SBME's Annual Symposium).
- Leads the commercialization subcommittee of SBME's Industry Advisory Committee (IAC), including managing membership, leading quarterly meetings, and reporting back to the main IAC, in collaboration with SBME's Strategic Partnerships Manager.
- Creates, maintains, and/or grows strong, mutually beneficial partnerships with external entrepreneurship enablers (e.g. venture capital firms, other incubators, accelerator and mentorship programs like Creative Destruction Labs and adMare, and UBC's Sauder School of Business), supporters (e.g. IP law firms), sponsors and funders (e.g., MITACS, industry partners, government) to enhance SBME Innovates and to foster a culture of commercialization within the School.
- Tracks appropriate metrics under this portfolio, providing summarized data at SBME leadership meetings as required, as well as to semi-annual reports.
- In collaboration with SBME's Communications Team, seeks out opportunities to highlight SBME's innovation success stories to disseminate to a broad audience.
- Inspires an entrepreneurial mindset by organizing and participating in relevant community events.
- Shepherds SBME ventures towards venture building resources, and nominating SBME entrepreneurs and ventures for relevant awards, programs, and other sources of funding and public relations opportunities.
- Connects SBME Ventures to non-dilutive and dilutive funding opportunities and networking opportunities.
- Carries out other related duties as required.
Consequence of Error/Judgement
This role has a significant client-facing component, both internally and externally. The Innovation Specialist will be an ambassador for the School of Biomedical Engineering. The position is responsible for recommendations and decisions that can affect the economic viability and effectiveness of a range of partnership initiatives. Poor judgement or decision making can cause a reputational risk for the University, and may result in lost opportunities for researchers, students, staff and partners.
Supervision Received
The candidate reports to the Strategic Partnerships Manager and works closely with other School leadership. Must be highly self-directed, take initiative, and work independently within policies and procedure. Work is reviewed by the Manager and SBME’s Director of Partnerships & Community Engagement.
Supervision Given
At this time, there are no planned positions that will report to the candidate.
Minimum Qualifications
Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline. Minimum of four years of related experience with at least two years of experience in business analysis or project management, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.
-
Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one’s own
-
Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one’s own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion
Preferred Qualifications
-
Post-graduate degree in molecular biology, microbiology, biochemical engineering, biomedical engineering, bioengineering or similar is considered an asset.
-
Excellent interpersonal skills and cross-cultural sensitivity.
-
Relevant experience working with scientists and administrators in an advanced research environment, and direct professional experience in business development in the life sciences sector.
-
Outstanding ability to speak and write clearly and persuasively.
-
Demonstrated success in creating and supporting multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral teams and facilitating connections.
-
Ability to be highly self-directed, taking initiative, and working independently under the general direction.
-
Ability to actively listen to partners and faculty, identify areas of common interest, and to create a compelling case for partnering with the SBME.
-
Exceptional organizational skills and ability to engage with and motivate a broad range of stakeholders.
-
Excellent analytical skills and ability to solve problems in a creative and efficient manner are essential.
-
Demonstrated experience in identifying and cultivating funded partnerships with academic and corporate organizations.
-
Significant experience in business development, marketing, strategic planning, or management consulting, with proven success in revenue generation is an asset.
-
Ability to exercise tact and discretion when handling sensitive and/or confidential matters.
-
Ability to travel to partners in the local ecosystem and to attend local and international conferences and events.
-
Experience mentoring, advising and working with startup ventures in the industry.
About Us
The University of British Columbia is a global centre for research and teaching, consistently ranked among the top 20 public universities globally. A large part of what makes us unique is the community of engaged students, faculty, and staff who are collectively committed to shaping a better world.
Recognized as a leading employer in British Columbia and Canada, UBC supports inspired students, faculty and staff on their journey of discovery, and challenges them to realize their greatest potential. New ideas, changing infrastructure, innovative technology, and fresh approaches are opening up possibilities for the future of research, teaching, and work. Are you ready to embrace the future together?
Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence. An open and diverse community fosters the inclusion of voices that have been underrepresented or discouraged. We encourage applications from members of groups that have been marginalized on any grounds enumerated under the B.C. Human Rights Code, including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, racialization, disability, political belief, religion, marital or family status, age, and/or status as a First Nation, Metis, Inuit, and/or Indigenous person.
All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.
If you have any accommodation or accessibility needs during the job application process, please contact the Centre for Workplace Accessibility at
workplace.accessibility@ubc.ca
.
Innovation Specialist
About the role
Staff - Non Union
Job Category
M&P - AAPS
Job Profile
AAPS Salaried - Business Development, Level A
Job Title
Innovation Specialist
Department
Partnerships & Community Engagement | School of Biomedical Engineering | Faculty of Medicine
Compensation Range
$6,251.00 - $8,986.00 CAD Monthly
The Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.
Posting End Date
February 11, 2026
Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the Posting End Date.
Job End Date
Ongoing
This position is expected to be filled by promotion/reassignment and is included here to inform you of its vacancy at the University.
This position is a 0.5 FTE part-time ongoing position.
At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career.
Job Summary
The School of Biomedical Engineering (SBME) is a partnership between the Faculties of Medicine and Applied Science. The SBME is a nucleus for education and training, research, and innovation in biomedical engineering; creating new knowledge, new academic and training programs, and fostering translation and innovation. The need to enable venture creation during the challenging inflection point where innovations are translated from academic labs into companies is being increasingly acknowledged. Recognizing this need, a key strategic priority for the SBME is to foster and support an entrepreneurial culture of invention, incubation, interaction, and collaboration. In partnership with Innovation UBC, SBME Innovates was established in 2019 as UBC's wet-lab incubator space that offers laboratory space, equipment access, building services, operational and partnerships support, at a stage when innovators grapple with scarce access to funding resources. The overarching, long-term goal of SBME Innovates is to bring a steady influx of ventures with ambitious, disruptive ideas that need critical support at the translation stage to get off the ground, and help them to successfully transition into their own space with a sustainable path forward.
SBME Innovates
Four UBC spin-off companies are currently housed within SBME Innovates. This current pilot phase paves the way for a significant expansion in 2026. We envision a significant expansion of SBME Innovates within its current location to accommodate 10-12 ventures at a time. Part of this expansion will entail expanding SBME's incubation efforts to accommodate ventures in the imaging & computational biology and human interfacing devices research themes of the School. This may be done through SBME’s expanded footprint, and/or via partnerships with other UBC units.
Summary of Requirements
The SBME Innovation Specialist will work specifically with members of the School (faculty, postdoctoral fellows, students, and staff), to:
- inspire an entrepreneurial mindset;
- identify potential startup opportunities;
- shepherd startup opportunities towards and through Innovation UBC’s venture building resources.
The SBME Innovation Specialist brings industry-specific knowledge, experience, and networks, works directly with SBME ventures/founders as they drive towards their commercial milestones. The SBME Innovation Specialist will lead the operations, implementation, partnership building, and long-term financial sustainability planning for SBME Innovates, and will grow SBME's culture of innovation and commercialization through various education and engagement initiatives, as well as support programs for SBME researchers.
Organizational Status
The SBME Innovation Specialist reports to the Strategic Partnerships Manager.
Work Performed
- Works closely with leadership at the SBME, leverages entrepreneurship expertise to lead the day-to-day operations (in collaboration with SBME's Building Team), planning, and growth of the SBME Innovates, SBME's in-house wet-lab venture incubator facility.
- Implementation of a commercialization pipeline for the SBME, including education initiatives and support from the early stages of research to technology spin-off and venture incubation.
- Develops and implements a long-term financial sustainability strategy for SBME Innovates, and grows partnerships to enable this strategy.
- Identifies prospects, seeks out and secure sponsors for SBME Innovates through mutually beneficial partnerships.
- Proactively seeks to identify SBME research and technologies with potential for future company creation, and support faculty members and research trainees with these goals.
- Acts as the point person for resident and prospective ventures, mentors, and partners.
- Liaises with internal (prospective ventures, UBC Treasury, Innovation UBC, VPRI) and external (venture capital firms, industry partners, sponsors, other incubators and entrepreneurship enablers) stakeholders on all matters pertaining to SBME Innovates and commercialization training initiatives for the SBME.
- Develops and delivers programs that expose SBME researchers to leading practices and strategies in entrepreneurship, company creation, commercialization, and other forms of knowledge translation, including leading the commercialization stream of SBME Propels, and entrepreneurship-themed sessions within and outside of major events (e.g. SBME's Annual Symposium).
- Leads the commercialization subcommittee of SBME's Industry Advisory Committee (IAC), including managing membership, leading quarterly meetings, and reporting back to the main IAC, in collaboration with SBME's Strategic Partnerships Manager.
- Creates, maintains, and/or grows strong, mutually beneficial partnerships with external entrepreneurship enablers (e.g. venture capital firms, other incubators, accelerator and mentorship programs like Creative Destruction Labs and adMare, and UBC's Sauder School of Business), supporters (e.g. IP law firms), sponsors and funders (e.g., MITACS, industry partners, government) to enhance SBME Innovates and to foster a culture of commercialization within the School.
- Tracks appropriate metrics under this portfolio, providing summarized data at SBME leadership meetings as required, as well as to semi-annual reports.
- In collaboration with SBME's Communications Team, seeks out opportunities to highlight SBME's innovation success stories to disseminate to a broad audience.
- Inspires an entrepreneurial mindset by organizing and participating in relevant community events.
- Shepherds SBME ventures towards venture building resources, and nominating SBME entrepreneurs and ventures for relevant awards, programs, and other sources of funding and public relations opportunities.
- Connects SBME Ventures to non-dilutive and dilutive funding opportunities and networking opportunities.
- Carries out other related duties as required.
Consequence of Error/Judgement
This role has a significant client-facing component, both internally and externally. The Innovation Specialist will be an ambassador for the School of Biomedical Engineering. The position is responsible for recommendations and decisions that can affect the economic viability and effectiveness of a range of partnership initiatives. Poor judgement or decision making can cause a reputational risk for the University, and may result in lost opportunities for researchers, students, staff and partners.
Supervision Received
The candidate reports to the Strategic Partnerships Manager and works closely with other School leadership. Must be highly self-directed, take initiative, and work independently within policies and procedure. Work is reviewed by the Manager and SBME’s Director of Partnerships & Community Engagement.
Supervision Given
At this time, there are no planned positions that will report to the candidate.
Minimum Qualifications
Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline. Minimum of four years of related experience with at least two years of experience in business analysis or project management, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.
-
Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one’s own
-
Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one’s own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion
Preferred Qualifications
-
Post-graduate degree in molecular biology, microbiology, biochemical engineering, biomedical engineering, bioengineering or similar is considered an asset.
-
Excellent interpersonal skills and cross-cultural sensitivity.
-
Relevant experience working with scientists and administrators in an advanced research environment, and direct professional experience in business development in the life sciences sector.
-
Outstanding ability to speak and write clearly and persuasively.
-
Demonstrated success in creating and supporting multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral teams and facilitating connections.
-
Ability to be highly self-directed, taking initiative, and working independently under the general direction.
-
Ability to actively listen to partners and faculty, identify areas of common interest, and to create a compelling case for partnering with the SBME.
-
Exceptional organizational skills and ability to engage with and motivate a broad range of stakeholders.
-
Excellent analytical skills and ability to solve problems in a creative and efficient manner are essential.
-
Demonstrated experience in identifying and cultivating funded partnerships with academic and corporate organizations.
-
Significant experience in business development, marketing, strategic planning, or management consulting, with proven success in revenue generation is an asset.
-
Ability to exercise tact and discretion when handling sensitive and/or confidential matters.
-
Ability to travel to partners in the local ecosystem and to attend local and international conferences and events.
-
Experience mentoring, advising and working with startup ventures in the industry.
About Us
The University of British Columbia is a global centre for research and teaching, consistently ranked among the top 20 public universities globally. A large part of what makes us unique is the community of engaged students, faculty, and staff who are collectively committed to shaping a better world.
Recognized as a leading employer in British Columbia and Canada, UBC supports inspired students, faculty and staff on their journey of discovery, and challenges them to realize their greatest potential. New ideas, changing infrastructure, innovative technology, and fresh approaches are opening up possibilities for the future of research, teaching, and work. Are you ready to embrace the future together?
Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence. An open and diverse community fosters the inclusion of voices that have been underrepresented or discouraged. We encourage applications from members of groups that have been marginalized on any grounds enumerated under the B.C. Human Rights Code, including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, racialization, disability, political belief, religion, marital or family status, age, and/or status as a First Nation, Metis, Inuit, and/or Indigenous person.
All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.
If you have any accommodation or accessibility needs during the job application process, please contact the Centre for Workplace Accessibility at
workplace.accessibility@ubc.ca
.