Assistant Director Research

The Role

As Assistant Director, Research, you lead the Australian Civil Military Centre (ACMC)’s research program with a clear purpose:

• You plan, propose and commission research able to be translated into practical action by government, military, police, and civil sector partners, including humanitarian organisations and civil society.
• You will work in close partnership with the Assistant Director Capability to ensure research is translated into usable tools, guidance, training and exercise outcomes.
• You are accountable for ensuring ACMC commissioned research leads directly to real-world improvements in how these groups work together in crises.
• You must also be prepared to apply your work and ACMC research in practice, including active participation in military and whole-of-government exercises, and engagement with civil partners.

About our Team

The Australian Civil-Military Centre's (ACMC) mission is to strengthen Australian and regional civil-military-police capacity and capability to respond more effectively to crises and contingencies. In implementing its mission, the ACMC promotes better practice civil-military-police coordination and interactions to achieve operational objectives.

ACMC is a small dynamic organisation with approximately 25 staff drawn from permanent staff from the Department of Defence augmented by secondees from Australian Government departments and agencies, the New Zealand Government, and the Australian Council for International Development (Australia’s peak non-government sector body).

The Concepts and Capability Directorate brings together cross-agency programs on new and emerging civil-military-police concepts that support the development of civil-military-police coordination and capability through knowledge mobilisation, preparedness, lessons and evaluation, and humanitarian-government cooperation.

Our Ideal Candidate

Our ideal candidate is someone with strong program management, stakeholder engagement capabilities and Commonwealth procurement experience with a demonstrated ability to deliver outcomes against complex problems across government and the civil sector.

To the role you bring:

• Proven experience delivering complex projects or programs from start to finish.
• Experience managing or commissioning research and working with external providers such as academic institutions and think tanks.
• Familiarity with civil-military-police coordination issues or related national security policy areas.
• A strong track record of turning analysis into practical outputs used by operators, planners, or policy-makers across government, police and non-government sectors.
• Experience working across government and civil sector organisations (e.g. NGOs, humanitarian groups, research bodies).
• Ability to work closely with capability, operations or training teams to implement findings.
• Willingness and ability to work in exercise environments, including alongside military and civil participants.
• Strong relationship-building skills to deliver quality research on time and on budget.
• Demonstrated understanding of Australia’s national security environment and the role of cross-government coordination in crisis response.
• Highly developed judgement and the ability to operate with limited direction.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Strong analytical thinking focused on clear, actionable outcomes.

Application Closing Date: 11:30pm Monday 6 July 2026.

For further information please review the job information pack, reference JOC/03281/26 on https://defencecareers.nga.net.au/?jati=AE4F0132-0C83-361F-E01D-ED072E24A2F0