Research Program Manager

Role Overview

This role is sits in both the Health Technical Unit and Research and Innovation departments.

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 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 30+ countries.

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 leads initiatives that provide resources for country programs to design and implement programs based on existing evidence.

EQUAL - Maternal and Newborn Health Research Consortium

The IRC is the lead on the Ensuring Quality Access and Learning (EQUAL) for Mothers and Newborns in Conflict-Affected Contexts Consortium, a research consortium funded through FCDO’s ‘Filling the Gaps in Evidence: Building Stronger And More Resilient Health Systems Research Programme Consortia (RPC)’ mechanism. IRC is partnering with Institute of Human Virology Nigeria, Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health, Somalia Disaster Resilience Institute, 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.

About the Position:

The Research Program Assistant will support IRC’s Global Research and Innovation Priority (GRIP) portfolio on Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, and Newborn Health (SRMNH). About half of their time will focus on support for the EQUAL Consortium (described above) and the other half to supporting the rest of the SRMNH GRIP portfolio.The responsibilities will include administration, partner coordination, grant, contract, and research support. They will work closely with external partners and internal EQUAL consortium team and across the Health Unit (HU) and Research and Innovation (R&I) teams.

Key Working Relationships

·Position reports to: Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal and Neonatal Health Research & Innovation Lead

·Position indirectly reports to: EQUAL Research Program Coordinator

·Position directly supervises: N/A

·Internal contacts: Regular contact with consortium staff, R&I department teams, HU teams, and country program staff.

Major Responsibilities

Administrative Tasks & Partner Coordination (60%)

EQUAL:

·Organize biennial consortium-wide meeting particularly related to logistics, communication and coordination

·Schedule and arrange various leadership meetings (external Consortium Advisory Group, internal Technical Advisory Group, etc.), take minutes, communicate and follow-up on action items

·Identify and organize visibility and learning events for the consortium

·Maintain communication and organizational systems for the consortium

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

·Work with various EQUAL workgroups on logistical and organizational aspects of capacity sharing and monitoring activities

SRMNH research and innovation portfolio:

·Produce and maintain materials for ongoing projects under the SRMNH research and innovation portfolio (briefs, website updates, inputs into various trackers)

·Support preparation of presentations, documents, etc.

·Organize team meetings

·Maintain tracker and support documentation needs for business development / fundraising

·Other administrative and coordination tasks as assigned

Contracts and grants support (20%)

·Support with compiling, editing and formatting of contractual documents, reports and proposals

·Support for budget tracking on small funding sources

·Review and checking of financial reporting and documentation under supervision of the Finance and Partnerships Coordinator

·Program support to compliance and related capacity sharing activities

Research support (20%)

·Editing and formatting manuscripts, protocols, and reports

·Supporting preparation of documents for IRB review

·Maintaining reference database

Job Requirements

Essential

Skills, Knowledge and Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience
• At least 2-3 years of relevant professional experience, preferably for an International Non-Governmental Organization.
• Excellent organizational skills: the ability to multi-task, learn quickly, and work independently and productively in a fast-paced and detail-oriented environment.
• Strong interest in research and innovation in the humanitarian sector, and a desire to gain hands-on experience with operational tasks while gaining broad exposure to the field.
• Flexible work attitude and demonstrated proactivity
• Ability to work productively in a team environment and problem solve creatively with minimal guidance.

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

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills: the ability to effectively liaise with and motivate a variety of people in a multi-cultural environment and across various time zones.
• Customer service orientation with desire to find creative and timely solutions for teams.
• High comfort level in all standard PC office software such as Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint.
• Excellent oral and written communications skills (English) required.

Preferred Requirements

●French language skills preferred

●Interest in sexual and reproductive health (particularly maternal and neonatal health)

●Experience and interest in humanitarian contexts

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, and Anti-Retaliation.

IRC et les employés de IRC doivent adhérer aux valeurs et principes contenus dans le IRC WAY (normes de conduite professionnelle). Ce sont l’Intégrité, le Service, et la Responsabilité. En conformité avec ces valeurs, IRC opère et fait respecter les politiques sur la protection des bénéficiaires contre l’exploitation et les abus, la protection de l’enfant, le harcèlement sur les lieux de travail, l’intégrité financière, et les représailles.