Research Coordinator/Manager Job Career – Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)

Job Title:   Research Coordinator/Manager – Uganda
Organisation: Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)
Duty Station: Kampala – Uganda
Department:  Research
Supervisor:   Country Director
Commitment: 2 years minimum  
About US: Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) is a research and policy nonprofit that discovers and promotes effective solutions to global poverty problems. IPA brings together researchers and decision-makers to design, rigorously evaluate, and refine these solutions and their applications, ensuring that the evidence created is used to improve the lives of the world’s poor. In recent decades, trillions of dollars have been spent on programs designed to reduce global poverty, but clear evidence on which programs succeed is rare, and when evidence does exist, decision-makers often do not know about it. IPA exists to bring together leading researchers and these decision-makers to ensure that the evidence we create leads to tangible impact on the world. Since its founding in 2002, IPA has worked with over 600 leading academics to conduct over 830 evaluations in 52 countries. This research has informed hundreds of successful programs that now impact millions of individuals worldwide.  
Job Summary: Research Coordinators manage a portfolio of about two to three projects and Research Managers about five projectsdepending on the nature of the projects and the level of involvement necessary. These projects include both research and project implementation components. They span a range of sectoral areas, such as finance, agriculture, health, education and gender issues. As part of their supervisory role, the Research Coordinator/Manager works closely with the country office to ensure effective support is provided to projects, and that projects are working within the relevant policies and procedures.  Research Coordinators/Managers are members of research management team; thus they play a role through contributions to country program development, project development, policy conversations as well as capacity building. Research Managers are assigned projects based on their experience and particular skills that are best suited to those projects. Research Managers and Research Coordinators hold equivalent responsibilities, however, workloads and assigned projects reflect their relative levels of experiences and professional development. 
Key Duties and Responsibilities: 

• Keep the Country Director apprised of all developments on the projects in their portfolio, and serve as key link between the field office, project staff, and Principal Investigators

• Ensure project adherence in the field to general research design, sample selection, data management and analysis, and overall project management

• Oversee project financial management, including creation and monitoring of project budgets, and ensure smooth integration of projects into IPA financial systems

• Work with field office staff to ensure sound human resource and operational management of projects

• Directly supervise project research staff (Research Associates and Field Managers), and help with transitions, on-boarding of new research staff and maintaining “institutional memory” of project activities

• Ensure that project deliverables, such as reports and financial statements, are submitted to donors and partners on time

• Lead training on data management and general project management for new/incoming project research staff

• Promote inter-project best practices and take a lead in sharing best practices with projects through formal and informal training opportunities

• Be the point of contact for data management and analysis support for project staff by serving as the link between projects and IPA headquarters

• Attend meetings with local government officials and partners to ensure success of both project specific and key IPA programmatic activities

• When requested, support the dissemination of results via presentations and reports to academic and non-academic audiences

• Support the Country Director in the development of new research studies in cooperation with principal investigators and partner organizations

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

• The ideal applicant must hold a Master’s degree in related field, such as development economics, public policy, public health, or education policy

• Up to two years of research or project management experience for a Research Coordinator and more than two years for a Research Manager

• Strong budgeting and financial management skills; experience with writing donor reports and grant proposals

• Strong written and oral communication skills and complete fluency in English is required

• Experience supervising data collection, teams of field workers, survey design and implementation and data management. Background in randomized control trials is strongly preferred

• Cultural sensitivity and demonstrated ability to work successfully with diverse constituencies required; developing country experience required

• Quantitative skills; working knowledge of Stata. Knowledge of other statistical packages such as SPSS or R are not required, but are a plus

• An analytical mind, ability to interpret and organize data

• Resourcefulness in coming up with solutions to new challenges, especially, in software and programming.

• Commitment to this position for two years

• Flexible and proactive work ethic with a demonstrated interest in the vision and mission of IPA

• Demonstrated experience in cleaning large datasets.

• A good level of do-file literacy.

• Knowledge on how to increase code efficiency by using loops and macros.

• Demonstrated experience in using STATA in data visualization.

• Familiarity with both linear and non-linear regression types and their appropriate usage.

• A good level of understanding of statistical power.

Advanced experience with applied statistics

• Familiarity with both linear and non-linear regression types and their appropriate usage.

• A good level of understanding of the statistical power concept.

• Experience with electronic data collection platforms

• Demonstrated ability to work with donors and/or partner organizations; experience with grants management

• Experience with presenting research findings at public forums, including to non-research focused audiences, is preferred

How to Apply: Complete the J-PAL/IPA common application Click Here .  After completing a brief registration, choose the Research job category, then select “Research Coordinator/Manager, Rwanda & Uganda”. Most applications require you to include two letter of recommendation, statement of purpose (cover letter), CV, and transcripts.   Applications will be reviewed on rolling basis until the position is filled. Apply Early
  Additional Desired Qualifications: Advanced experience with data management