Research Manager

Background/IRC Summary:  The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, we restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure. The IRC leads the way from harm to home.

IRC has been working in Pakistan for over 30 years, and manages and delivers large, complex programs to meet the needs in health, education, protection, environmental health and livelihoods for displaced, poor and disaster affected communities. IRC works in partnership with local government and non-governmental organizations and currently works in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Baluchistan and Sindh provinces.

Job Overview/Summary:

The country program has committed to ensuring that children, both in and out of school, have appropriate literacy, numeracy, social-emotional skills, and will work towards the reduction and elimination of barriers to ensure that girls are equally skilled and safe as boys.  In line with this commitment, the IRC will implement the three-year Leave No Girl behind (TEACH) project which aims to ensure they have significantly improved learning outcomes and transition to education, training or employment.

The LNGB Research Manager will be responsible for day-to-day management of the program impact evaluation to ensure quality and timely implementation of the research. This will include excellent coordination of the External Evaluator (EE-to be contracted). The EE will be responsible for designing and delivery the project evaluation, in close collaboration with the IRC. The Research Manager will proactively contribute to select, commission and support the EE and the LNGB consortium to plan, design, conduct, manage and report on the project research.

The Research Manager will be a key member of the MEAL Unit and report to the Senior MEAL Coordinator. S/he will work closely both with the wider IRC Research, Evaluation and Learning unit and incorporate their strategic guidance and technical advice, and with the other partners of the LNGB Consortium to ensure common understanding and effective delivery of the evaluation approach across the consortium. As a key member of the MEAL, s/he will work closely with the MEAL Lead to align monitoring and evaluation plans and strategies. Although the role does not have direct line management responsibility, the s/he will periodically oversee project team members in the districts providing support to project staff and the External Evaluator as needed to implement the research.

Major Responsibilities:

Management and supervision

·         Participate in planning and – when required – budgeting processes for the project research, overseeing and monitoring the budget for the external evaluation component;

·         Under the supervision of the MEAL Lead and the technical oversight of Research, Evaluation and Learning (REL), provide direction to the LNGB consortium partners at the country level, ensuring full understanding of the research approach;

·         In coordination with REL, lead on collaborating with the EE for establishing workplan, setting targets, reviewing progress and identifying challenges and solutions to achieve project aims. In addition, maintain compliance with project agreement, relaying feedback to the MEAL Lead as required;

·         Work closely with the partners’ research team to review and oversee the project awareness raising activities research, and ensure this does not duplicate but is complimentary to the project external evaluation carried out by the EE.

Technical responsibilities

·         Managing the EE as required, including support scoping the research and defining research methodology;

·         Working closely with the EE to develop, review and test measurement tools, ensuring alignment with best practices and the IRC and international standards, as well as compliance with the GEC-LNGB requirements;

.         Work closely with the EE to support the establishment of qualitative and quantitate research processes and participate in the development and refinement of quality metrics through a participatory approach, whereby abiding by the GEC-LNGB requirements; this includes reviewing and updating the project logical framework as required;

·         Work closely with the EE on reviewing quality data and analysis;

           Develop plans with the EE and other teams to engage stakeholders in the research work and ensure the feedback from stakeholders and especially children and their families is sought and utilized as appropriate;

·         In collaboration with the Protection Specialist, ensure safeguarding standards are mainstreamed in the research methodology, upheld in the research delivery and regularly monitored throughout implementation;

·         In collaboration with the MEAL Lead, ensure that monitoring and research streams of data are linked up and coordination mechanisms are in place.

Reporting

·         Act as consortium focal point for providing support to the EE in the delivery of accurate and timely baseline, midline and endline reporting;

·         In conjunction with the MEAL Lead and the REL unit, curating all research reports submitted by the EE to ensure a thorough review of significant findings and trends, get value from them and report them back to the Project team leader and the REL unit. This includes ensuring that all reports are reviewed and approved by the IRC before submission to the Fund Manager.

Coordination with external stakeholders

In close collaboration with and under the oversight of the TEACH Team Leader:

·         Respond in a timely manner to information requests on the research from consortium program teams, finance teams, the Fund Manager or DFID;

·         Maintain a solid, positive working relationship with the EE and research partners;

·         Represent the IRC and the partners with the donor in different fora on research as it may be required;

·         Provide support to the LNGB Team Leader to manage external relations by ensuring the dissemination of information about project research and its findings to different audiences is effective;

·         Ensure timely, accurate and good quality reporting to the donor and others stakeholders as it may be required ;

·         Ensure the IRC meets contractual project, legal and financial requirements for the research.

Key Working Relationships:

Position Reports to:  Senior MEAL Coordinator

Job Requirements:

A.     Education

·         Master’s level education in education, international development or a related subject including experience of quantitative and qualitative research in a social science subject;

·         Experience of measuring impact of youth or education programmes;

·         Strong analytic skills and high-level understanding of statistical data (e.g., statistical analysis, social science research, programme evaluation), ability to recognise, interpret and synthesise patterns in data;

B.      Work experience

·         At least 05 years relevant (research) experience 

·         Experience building or contributing to building an impact measurement programme in an organisation, either as a direct employee or in a consulting/advisory capacity;

·         Ability to and experience of driving and project managing an impact measurement programme or analogous programme in a large sized organisation with limited oversight;

·         Excellent IT skills (Word, Outlook, Excel)

·         Ability to manage a large and varied workload, work under pressure and meet deadlines

·         Previous Experience in similar context and project preferred.

·         Capability in statistical analysis programming languages/software such as SPSS/STATA highly desirable.

C.      Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:

·         Lead with commitment, integrity and accountability to the “IRC Way” – Global Standards for Professional Conduct.

·         Values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength

·         Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to

·         Good communication and presentation skills.

·         Good interpersonal skills

D.     Language Skills: 

·         Good written and spoken English and Urdu skills; regional language skills will be a plus.

The IRC Core Values and Commitments;

The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity Anti-Retaliation and Combating Trafficking in Persons.

IRC is committed to ensuring that IRC staff is suitable to work with children and have the knowledge s/he needs to uphold and abide by the IRC’s Child Safeguarding Policy.

Level of interaction with children: Frequent direct contact with children

IRC ensures that its staff must actively practice the roles and responsibilities related to client responsiveness, accountability to people in affected communities and must have competencies to solicits and listens to feedback and other’s perspectives, responds to feedback with maturity and sensitivity and takes appropriate decisions and makes changes to behavior or actions in response to feedback.

IRC recognizes that gender equality is fundamental to the achievement of our organizational mission. As such, IRC is committed to the promotion of gender equality in all aspects of our operations and programs. Our organizational policies, procedures and actions demonstrate this commitment.

Women candidates and persons with disability are highly encouraged to apply.