Lead of Research & Practice
About the Position
The LEGO Foundation is seeking a new Senior Director of Research & Practice to lead the next frontier in Learning through Play.
As a visionary with bias towards action, you'll shape the future, setting the strategy and priorities for advancing the field of Learning through Play. In order to accelerate the pace of change in achieving the LEGO Foundation’s aspirations, you will seek partnerships with research institutions globally to find, connect and amplify the best approaches backed by research and tested in practice.
As an authentic people leader, you will be responsible for setting and achieving your team’s goals to achieve high quality research and evidence synthesis, generation and dissemination. You will also grow and develop your team members of highly experienced professionals within the multi-disciplinary field of Learning Sciences.
As an ambassador of Learning through Play, you will play a visible role as a representative of the LEGO Foundation, a with a keen eye for contextual impact in the geographies in which we work, advancing the field of learning through play, and by role-modeling a child-centric and focused approach.
The Research & Practice team is critical in our organizational strategy.
From nurturing a culture of creativity, enquiry and rigour to driving cross-organizational change, you will play a pivotal role in elevating play as a fundamental aspect of childhood and education worldwide.
Key Responsibilities & Tasks
Team and people management
- Lead team to be high-performing and thriving
- Create an inspiring team environment that is characterized by trust and open communication, promoting a safe-to-fail mindset
- Nurture each team member’s growth and development
- Communicate and collaborate with the LEGO Foundation Leadership Team to steer and support the team’s direction and goals
- Bringing along stakeholders within and across and organization boundaries
Strategic execution of Research and Practice goals
- Identify the critical research questions to advance Learning through Play in key geographies and priority themes
- Advance our understanding of leading practice and architect our approach to partnering with research organizations, with a focus in our target geographies
- Proactively ensure that insights and evidence is integrated into the fabric of LEGO Foundation’s operating model both through a collaborative approach and integrative thinking
Contextualization of Learning Through Play research
- Work at the forefront of successful contextualization approaches for Learning through Play research
- Leverage partnerships to pro-actively collaborate, innovate, develop, adapt, and share improved approaches to Learning through Play
- Translate complex or technical concepts or ideas to many different audiences effectively
- Engage LEGO Foundation’s programme teams with high-quality research methods for evidence analysis, synthesis, generation and use
- Use data analysis and validation approaches for speedy high-stakes decision making
About You
Your heart and mind are aligned with the LEGO Foundation purpose and values. You thrive in playful environments, readily integrating fun, imagination, and creativity in the workplace. In addition to this passion for our work, we are seeking a range of experiences and skills :
Work Experience & Education
- Academic background within education, technology, sciences or psychology holding minimum a master’s degree, ideally a PhD.
- 7+ years applying and translating research into practice in mix of both academic and commercial or other applied settings
- 7+ years as people leader with a track record of delivering results and developing capabilities of team members to their full potential
- Strong communicator, adapt at converting complex or technical research topics for executives, stakeholders and general audience
- Preferably with keynoting and stage experience, engaging with media
Skills & style:
- Team-player who shows inclusive, value-based, and playful approach to your role
- Creative, engaged life-long learner who is curious, collaborative and open-minded in their approach to all tasks and activities
- Effective analytical skills that can balance building on solutions that already exist, alongside identifying opportunities to drive fresh, innovative solutions for achieving high-quality, contextualised research
- Can structure complex nebulous ideas to simplify and mobilise teams
- Can manage moving targets and inspire creative thinking and decisiveness in difficult circumstances
- Strength in multi-stakeholder management and cross-organizational change management.
- Good listener who can be an effective thought partner for team members, and a collaborative leader who can drive the impact across departments within the LEGO Foundation
The position is based in Billund, Denmark, at the headquarters of the LEGO Foundation (and the broader LEGO Eco-system). Shortlisting and interviews will be held on ongoing basis, and this advert will be removed when we have suitable candidates.
About the LEGO Foundation:
In 1986, The LEGO Foundation was created by the founders of the LEGO Group to enable all children to reach their full potential by learning through play. The Foundation enables playful child-centered learning for millions of children around the world, including children in extremely vulnerable environments as well as children with special educational needs and disabilities. The Foundation supports activities carried out by partners in 64 countries on all continents
The LEGO Foundation believe that children are agents of change and protagonists of their own learning. The LEGO Foundation places children at the centre of its work and supports system actors, social activists, community leaders, families and children who believe in the power of learning through play.
- Locations
- Billund
Lead of Research & Practice
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