Humanitarian Research and Programme Consultant

About the role

Essential produces a low-cost, high-quality protein through fermentation in Kenya, and operates the first mycoprotein biomanufacturing facility in Sub-Saharan Africa. One of our core focus areas of impact is in humanitarian markets: protein is the leading cost driver of humanitarian nutrition commodities, so offering a locally produced, low-cost, and high-quality source can expand access to life-saving therapeutics.

We are in the early stages of penetrating the humanitarian market. We are starting with two projects: (1) an acceptability trial of a locally produced non-specially formulated food with Essential as the core protein source in Northern Kenya, and (2) a four-year EU-funded multi-country consortium developing therapeutic and supplementary foods from local ingredients including our protein.

This role directs this work. The consultant sets what a study or programme has to deliver, holds many parties to a single critical path, acts as the last quality check before anything is fielded, submitted or published, and oversees end-to-end execution. It suits someone who can originate a research question and judge the quality of work delivered by others, who is comfortable operating without a large team, and is comfortable overseeing humanitarian delivery and research.

Engagement

General responsibilities

1. Programme and research direction

Sets what a study, pilot or programme has to accomplish, and translates that into a design brief the research consultant can build from. This is origination: the research consultant converts direction into protocols, instruments and fieldwork, but does not set the research question or decide what standard of evidence the work has to meet.

•      Define what each programme or study must demonstrate, and to whom — the evidence a county procurement decision, a WFP local procurement consideration, or a funder’s next-phase commitment would require.

•      Convert that into design briefs covering research questions, outcome definitions, comparators and the analysis approach, at a level of specificity the research consultant can build a protocol from.

•      Own the sequencing logic — what has to be established before the next stage of evidence can responsibly be commissioned.

•      Escalate to the CEO and external technical advisers on questions requiring greater strategic collaboration and judgement, such as scientific validity and ethical judgement, while remaining the person who holds the design question day to day.

2. Delivery

Holds studies and programmes together across parties that do not otherwise coordinate with each other, and is accountable for them happening on schedule.

•      Most critically, stand up and then manage the field implementation function — community entry, enumerator sourcing, secure document custody, and the participant contact pathway — which currently has no partner attached to it.

•      Run the critical path across food formulation lock, laboratory verification, regulatory certification, manufacturing, ethics and permits, enumerator readiness and enrolment — and identify when a slip in one makes another unachievable.

•      Brief and sequence Essential’s internal product and science teams on what the study needs.

•      Manage the research consultant’s delivery against agreed milestones.

•      Manage manufacturing and procurement partners against specification and timeline.

•      Hold the field relationships: the County Nutrition Coordinator, the wider Department of Health, sub-county administration, facility in-charges, and the field research lead.

•      Maintain the funder relationship, including reporting obligations and any change that alters what was originally described.

3. Quality assurance

Reviews what external parties produce against Essential’s standards, set through the direction work above, and is the last check before anything is fielded, submitted or published.

•      Review protocols, instruments and consent materials for internal consistency, ethical compliance and fitness for the research question.

•      Verify instruments will generate the data the analysis plan and funder indicators require.

•      Check enumerator training content and competency sign-off before fieldwork begins.

•      Monitor data quality during collection: completeness, consistency, inter-rater reliability on observations, and adverse event recording.

•      Review analysis and draft outputs for whether conclusions are supported by the data, and whether limitations are stated honestly.

•      Verify product and comparator against specification, including laboratory results and regulatory documentation.

•      Sense-check numerical claims against source data before they get disseminated.

What you would be working on

The acceptability trial is the immediate priority and the bulk of this year. It is a crossover acceptability study at two health facilities in Wajir County, comparing a locally produced Essential non-specially formulated food against the standard corn-soya blend, with each participant acting as her own control. The study is through design and into approvals; ahead of it are product lock and manufacture, ethics and permits, county endorsement, enumerator readiness, enrolment, an eight-week data collection window, analysis, and dissemination to the county, the funder, and the wider nutrition sector.

The NutriLOC consortium is a four-year, ten-partner project developing locally sourced therapeutic and supplementary foods across Kenya, Ghana and Sierra Leone, in which Essential is a beneficiary. Essential’s obligations concentrate in product development, regulatory framework work, and research protocols and ethics coordination.

Essential’s humanitarian portfolio is still forming. Beyond these two projects, we expect the work to extend into further evidence generation, policy engagement and new partnerships, and the retainer is intended to flex with it.

Who we are looking for

Essential

•      Substantial experience designing or commissioning applied research in nutrition, public health or a closely related field.

•      A track record of quality-assuring research delivered by other people, and collaborating with them to deliver outputs that comply with high standards and serve the research purpose.

•      Experience working in arid and semi-arid counties or comparable humanitarian settings, and willingness to spend time in Wajir as fieldwork requires it.

•      Working knowledge of humanitarian nutrition programming — supplementary and therapeutic feeding, the commodities in use, and how procurement decisions get made.

•      Comfort operating at the interface with food product development and regulatory certification, without needing to be a food scientist.

•      Strong written English, and the ability to produce funder reports, county-facing briefings and publication-quality writing.

•      Able to work independently, hold several external parties to a schedule, and operate without a team beneath them.

Desirable

•      Peer-reviewed publication record in nutrition, food science or public health.

•      Prior work in Northern Kenya, and existing relationships there.

•      Practical familiarity with research ethics and approvals in Kenya, including institutional review and NACOSTI, and with county-level government engagement.

•      Somali language, or experience working through Somali-language field teams.

•      Experience within multi-partner donor-funded consortia and their reporting requirements.

•      Policy or regulatory engagement experience at county and national level.

How to apply

Please send your CV to talent@essentialimpact.org with the subject line “[Your name] – Humanitarian Consultant”.