Senior Partnerships Manager

At the Institutional Data Initiative (IDI) we’re working to expand access to, and our collective understanding of, the data that underpins AI. By collaborating with library, government, and academic institutions to publish their knowledge collections as AI training sets, IDI seeks to 1) empower those institutions and the cultures they represent, 2) build a foundational pipeline for academic inquiry of AI, and 3) advance the state of the art for all builders of AI systems. At launch, we released Institutional Books—a dataset of nearly 1M public domain books, scanned through Harvard Library. 

IDI’s work spans the AI data ecosystem—from digitization, data structuring, and metadata synthesis, to safety and security analysis, all the way through to benchmarking and the development of ethical and governance frameworks. Institutional collaboration forms the gateway to this work and sets the rhythm of all other work at the initiative.  

The Senior Partnerships Manager will foster opportunities for collaboration by building relationships with other institutions and identifying novel institutional collections where IDI might have an impact. The person in this role will build on previous knowledge and relationships from libraries or other public interest institutions to find places where IDI might empower them. This person’s high-level understanding of AI and IDI’s capabilities will enable ambitious opportunities to arise from these conversations.  

As IDI’s institutional connections grow, the Senior Partnerships Manager will develop a map of the landscape of opportunities, including specific knowledge collections, document them for triage and discussion within IDI, and shepherd them through from kickoff to fruition. Once partners have signed on, the person in this role will also manage IDI’s working relationship with them - offering regular updates, facilitating their input to our work, and collaborating on a data release plan.  

The Senior Partnerships Manager will also contribute to the building of community around IDI’s work to enable outside collaborators—fellow technologists, academics, students, cultural stakeholders—to expand our capabilities, capacity, and perspectives. IDI operates within Harvard and alongside the Library Innovation Lab, the Berkman Klein Center, and the Applied Social Media Lab; engaging these communities, among others, is critical to delivering on our mission. 

As Senior Partnerships Manager, you will: 

• Own the ongoing development and execution of IDI’s strategy to identify, cultivate, secure, and manage our partnerships with knowledge institutions across the globe. This includes individual relationships as well as efforts to build cross-institutional or collaborative partnerships to multiply our impact.  
• Develop outreach strategies to connect with institutions and their stakeholders, including through both warm and cold connections, and systems for tracking progress. 
• Attend conferences to represent IDI, expand the initiative’s footprint, and seed new partnerships. 
• Submit proposals to potential partners and shepherd partner agreements through various approval processes. 
• Inform and sharpen IDI’s strategy to build shared infrastructure, tooling, and other offerings for the library community, through discovery and knowledge built while working with partners.  
• Work with IDI’s technical team members to understand capabilities and capacity. 
• Serve as the primary point of contact for active partners by providing updates and facilitating their input to IDI’s work. 
• Find and document collaboration opportunities, including detailed analysis of corpora against a range of criteria. 
• Support work with the IDI’s Library Advisory Council, as it relates to existing or potential partnerships.  
• Help build the IDI research community by onboarding and interacting with institutional partners within IDI’s community platforms. 
• Other duties as assigned.