Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Head of Research and Innovation

🎯 Role Definition

The Head of Research and Innovation leads the organization's R&D, discovery and innovation agenda to generate differentiated products, services and technologies that drive long-term growth. This role sets the research strategy and roadmap, manages multidisciplinary teams, secures funding and partnerships, oversees prototyping and commercialization efforts, and translates scientific and technical opportunities into business value. The Head of Research and Innovation balances deep technical credibility with strategic leadership, stakeholder influence and a strong commercial orientation.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Senior Director / Director of Research or R&D
Head of Product Innovation or Product Strategy
Principal Scientist / Research Group Lead

Advancement To:

Chief Innovation Officer (CINO)
Vice President, Research & Development
Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Lateral Moves:

Head of Product
Director of Strategic Partnerships and Alliances
Director of Technology Commercialization

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Define and own the multi-year research and innovation strategy aligned to company vision, market trends, and competitive differentiation, including technology roadmaps and priority research themes.
Lead, mentor and scale a multidisciplinary R&D organization (scientists, engineers, product designers, data scientists) to execute discovery, prototyping, and productization initiatives.
Drive end-to-end innovation programs from ideation through concept validation, prototype development, pilot testing and commercialization with clear milestones and go/no-go decision gates.
Translate scientific research and technical breakthroughs into viable product features, new services, intellectual property and commercial opportunities that increase revenue or reduce cost.
Establish and monitor KPIs and success metrics for research programs (TRL progression, time-to-market, IP filings, proof-of-concept success rates, revenue contribution, cost savings).
Manage R&D budgeting, headcount planning and P&L responsibility for research initiatives; prioritize investments based on strategic value and ROI.
Lead technology scouting, horizon scanning and competitive intelligence to identify emerging technologies, partnerships and acquisition targets relevant to the company roadmap.
Build and manage external research partnerships with universities, national labs, startups, corporate partners and contract research organizations to accelerate innovation and de-risk projects.
Oversee intellectual property strategy including invention capture, patent filing pipeline, freedom-to-operate analysis and licensing opportunities.
Champion data-driven research using rigorous experimental design, statistical analysis and reproducible research practices to ensure high-quality scientific output.
Collaborate closely with Product, Engineering, Marketing and Commercial teams to ensure research outcomes meet user needs and support go-to-market plans.
Represent the company in scientific and industry forums, publish peer-reviewed papers where strategic, and present research and innovation results to customers, investors and boards.
Create processes and governance for prioritizing and tracking research projects, including stage-gate frameworks, risk management and resource allocation.
Lead regulatory strategy and compliance input for regulated domains (e.g., medical, life sciences, fintech) to ensure research and product development meet legal and safety requirements.
Drive rapid prototyping, minimum viable product (MVP) development and pilot deployments to validate technical feasibility and commercial demand.
Implement and evolve tools, platforms and labs for experimentation (e.g., testbeds, CI for research, data platforms) to accelerate reproducible R&D workflows.
Hire, retain and develop top research talent; set performance objectives, career pathways and a culture of innovation and continuous learning.
Negotiate and manage contracts, sponsored research agreements, grants and collaborative funding arrangements to fund and scale strategic research programs.
Translate customer and market feedback into research priorities and iterate quickly to close the loop between discovery and user value.
Drive cross-functional change management to integrate research outcomes into product development lifecycles and business operations.
Create commercialization plans for mature research outputs including pricing strategy, go-to-market alignment, technical support models and channel enablement.
Report regularly to the executive team and board on research portfolio health, strategic risks, milestones achieved and investment needs.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Facilitate internal knowledge sharing, run innovation workshops and maintain a repository of validated learnings and failed experiments.
Provide technical due diligence support for M&A, partnerships and vendor evaluations.
Advocate for sustainable, ethical and compliant research practices, including data privacy, reproducibility and bias mitigation.
Assist recruiting and interview panels for technical and research hires.
Mentor early-career researchers and interns through structured mentorship and rotation programs.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Research strategy development and R&D portfolio management
Advanced subject-matter expertise in relevant domains (e.g., AI/ML, life sciences, materials science, chemistry, engineering)
Technology scouting and trend analysis with vendor/startup ecosystem knowledge
Intellectual property management: patents, licensing and FTO assessments
Experimental design, statistical analysis and reproducible research practices
Prototyping, systems integration and productization of research outputs
Data science tools and languages (e.g., Python, R) and familiarity with data platforms and ML pipelines
Project and program management methodologies, including stage-gate and Agile for R&D
Budgeting, financial modeling and ROI analysis for innovation investments
Regulatory and compliance knowledge relevant to the industry (e.g., FDA, ISO, GDPR)
Experience negotiating research contracts, sponsored projects and collaborative agreements
Metrics-driven performance management and OKR/KPI setting for research teams

Soft Skills

Strategic leadership and vision-setting with ability to influence senior stakeholders
Strong written and verbal communication; ability to translate technical concepts for business audiences
Cross-functional collaboration and relationship building with product, engineering, sales and external partners
Mentorship and people management with a focus on talent development and inclusion
Decision-making under uncertainty and risk management for high-complexity projects
Entrepreneurial mindset with bias for experimentation and rapid learning
Change management and capability building across the organization
Critical thinking and problem solving with intellectual curiosity
Negotiation and stakeholder diplomacy for partnerships and funding
Resilience and adaptability in fast-moving, ambiguous environments

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Master's degree in a relevant technical or scientific field (Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Data Science) or equivalent industry experience.

Preferred Education:

PhD in a relevant research discipline or MBA combined with strong technical background and demonstrated commercialization experience.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning
Engineering (Electrical, Mechanical, Materials)
Life Sciences, Biotechnology, Chemistry
Physics, Applied Mathematics, Statistics
Business Administration / Innovation Management (for commercialization emphasis)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

10+ years of progressive R&D and innovation experience with at least 5 years in a senior leadership role managing multidisciplinary teams.

Preferred:

12–20 years with proven track record launching commercially successful products or technologies, managing large research portfolios and budgets, securing external funding or strategic partnerships, and demonstrated IP generation or technology transfers.