IT Business Partner – Academic & Research

Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary strategic liaison between IT & Information Security and MBZUAI’s Academic Divisions, Research Centers, and faculty.
• Build and maintain trusted relationships with academic stakeholders to understand teaching, research, and scholarly technology needs.
• Lead the adoption of IT systems and platforms, including LMS, research computing services, AI/ML tooling, and collaboration platforms.
• Capture, document, and validate academic requirements, translating them into functional requirements for IT delivery teams.
• Manage technology demand and prioritize initiatives to ensure alignment with institutional priorities and available capacity.
• Act as an escalation point for major service issues affecting teaching, learning, or research delivery.
• Advocate for MBZUAI IT by sharing its mission and strategic goals with the academic community.
• Monitor higher education and AI research trends to provide strategic insights into academic computing and research IT.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems, Educational Technologies, Business Administration, Higher Education Administration, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience in business relationship management, IT business partnering, technology adoption, or digital transformation.
• Proven experience acting as a bridge between business/academic stakeholders and technical IT teams.
• Demonstrated expertise in capturing business requirements and coordinating IT demand.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, including engagement with senior faculty, researchers, or operational leaders.
• Experience supporting change management, user adoption, and communication activities for technology initiatives.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience providing technology services within a higher education or research-intensive environment.
• Direct experience discussing technology products and strategic decisions with faculty members.
• Familiarity with enterprise platforms such as ERP, CRM, SIS, and various collaboration tools.

About the Company

Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) is a research-driven institution dedicated to advancing the field of artificial intelligence and its applications to support the scholarly mission of the university.