The IRC’s vision is to lead the humanitarian field by implementing high-impact, cost-effective programs for people affected by crisis and by using our learning and experience to shape policy and practice. To achieve that vision, the IRC’s technical units provides technical assistance to IRC’s country program staff and shares what we learn to influence policy and practice.

The technical units have three central objectives that we work towards:

1) Guide program design to achieve outcomes by incorporating the best available evidence

2) Build technical capacity of country program staff to implement, measure and continuously improve programs

3) Influence the IRC, peer agencies and donors to use proven interventions and generate new evidence to achieve change in peoples’ lives

The Research and Innovation Department (Airbel Impact Lab) supports the various technical units across the IRC to conduct or backstop research studies and innovation projects, and also leads initiatives that provide resources for country programs to design and implement programs based on existing evidence. 

Health Technical Unit

The Health Technical Unit is organized in four sectors; primary health, reproductive health, environmental health, and nutrition. The structure emphasizes a clear division of roles between staff focusing on comprehensive technical assistance to countries and staff providing specialized support and thought leadership. In 2017, the Health Technical Unit supported programming in 6 regions and 27 countries.

Health Systems Research Programme Consortia (RPC)

The IRC is expected to receive funding to lead Ensuring Quality Access and Learning (EQUAL) for Mothers and Newborns in Conflict-Affected Contexts Consortium, a research consortium funded through DFID’s ‘Filling the Gaps in Evidence: Building Stronger And More Resilient Health Systems Research Programme Consortia (RPC)’ mechanism.  The IRC-led RPC aims to produce high quality evidence that improves the health of the poorest and most vulnerable people in developing countries. The IRC is partnering with Institute of Human Virology Nigeria, Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health, Somalia Disaster Resilience Institute, Sudd Institute (South Sudan), and Université Catholique de Bukavu (DRC).  The objective of this project is to produce rigorous, operationally relevant research and evidence to improve maternal and neonatal health in low-income, conflict-affected contexts.  This project will produce evidence that is accessible to decision-makers influencing strategic investment, policy and programming to improve MNH, at the national and global level. 

Major responsibilities

The Research Program Manager leads project management across the entire program, working closely with the EQUAL Consortium CEO, Research Directors, and the rest of the project team to deliver an ambitious program of research and research uptake activities. The role involves liaising across multiple research and program specialist units within IRC, academic consortium partners, IRC country offices, and DFID to deliver the project in a high-quality, effective, and efficient manner. A significant focus of the position is to ensure that the project meets the high standards and requirements of DFID.

Project Management and Monitoring & Evaluation (45%)

• Work with the project team to develop project plans, including full logical frameworks

• Support the CEO to implement adjustments to account for any gaps in reporting/data collection and work closely with field and address them

• Coordinate with the Finance and Contract Manager to ensure the budget reflects current activity plans

• Support the CEO to communicate needs for project monitoring tool development and strategies/templates to address them

• Assist and coordinate technical staff, partners and field offices to implement project tracking tools

• Maintain an in-depth knowledge on donor and government policies and support colleagues to ensure that Partners’ responsibilities are tracked and evaluated, and that updates on their contract management performance are communicated in a timely and professional manner to appropriate stakeholders

• Maintain comprehensive and standardized electronic files for the project, and ensure project team and partners have access to relevant records

• Facilitate project coordination, information-sharing and guidance on donor rules to IRC and Partner’s project staff

• Supervise and complete special projects as assigned by the EQUAL Consortium CEO that may fall outside of this job description.

Partner Coordination (25%)

• In coordination with the project team, work with partners’ staff to develop project documents including monitoring plans, contracts and activity plans.

• Supervise and coordinate partnership processes;

• Ensure that Partners’ responsibilities for donor compliance are tracked and evaluated;

• Ensure that updates on contract management performance are communicated in a timely and professional manner to appropriate stakeholders.

• Identify partner capacity strengthening and mentoring needs and organize appropriate activities to meet such needs

Reporting (10%)

• Coordinate the production of all narrative reports from partners, the IRC project team and field offices, and provide feedback to improve product quality, accuracy, and style.

• Support the Finance and Contract Manager as needed to obtain necessary inputs from partners on financial reporting

• Be responsible for submission of donor reports and information, and communication of compliance questions and project challenges.

• Support the EQUAL Consortium CEO to implement adjustments to account for any gaps in reporting/data collection and work closely with field teams and partners to address them.

• Work closely with the Finance and Contract Manager as well as IRC awards management and commercial contracts teams to develop and execute contracts within the fixed price model.

Administrative tasks (10%)

• Organize biennial consortium-wide meeting and support travel needs for participants

• Organize various leadership meetings (external Consortium Advisory Group, internal Technical Advisory Group, etc.)

• Identify / organize visibility events for the consortium

• Generate and maintain communication systems for the consortium

• Other tasks at EQUAL Consortium CEO’s request

Relationship with DFID (10%)

• Liaise with DFID, and other operational partners, through attendance at scheduled and ad hoc meetings and consultations upon the EQUAL Consortium CEO’s request, and represent IRC and IRC’s interests by maintaining positive and constructive relations.

• Ensure that the project team and Partners are aware of all relevant DFID communication, changes in their regulations, and meetings or conferences.

• Masters-level education in public health or a related subject preferred

• 3-5 years of experience with demonstrated organisation, coordination and project management skills including budget management and developing project management documents such as logical frameworks and monitoring tools

• Excellent written English including the ability to edit, synthesise information and produce high quality reports  

• Ability to work (read and write) inFrench 

• Experience and a good understanding of global health

• Proven ability to operate in a complex organisation, across functions and work on own initiative and collaboratively as part of diverse teams

• Ability to manage a varied workload, work under pressure, prioritise and meet deadlines

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills including an ability to communicate effectively with staff at all levels and acrossregions/countries

• Excellent IT skills (Word, Outlook, Excel)

• The ability to work productively and accurately while under pressure in a fast-paced, demanding environment;

• Flexible work attitude: the ability to work in a team environment and independently and ability to meet unexpecteddemands;

• Ability to work as part of a team as well as on owninitiative.

• Ability to multi-task and prioritizeeffectively

Preferred requirements

• Experience of managing donor-funded contracts

• Experience working on DFID commercial contract

• Experience and interest in maternal and neonatal health

• Experience and interest in humanitarian contexts

• Good understanding of research design and methodology

Working environment

• Ability and willingness to travel internationally to humanitarian contexts (up to 30% oftime)

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