Company Details

A leading Indian liberal arts University

Assignment Details

Our client is Centre for Social and Behaviour Change (CSBC) at Ashoka University which was set up through a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They are looking to engage with a consultant with a trackrecord in qualitative research and a strong commitment totranslating research findings into practice.

For this position we are seeking an individual with a track record in qualitative research and a strong commitment to translating research findings into practice. CSBC works along the entire demand generation cycle from employing qualitative research to gather behavioural insights, designing pioneering solutions to address complex development problems, testing innovative prototypes and,finally working with stakeholders to scale up these rigorously tested innovations to increase uptake of (often government mandated) products and services. Hence the person selected for this position needs to understand the application of qualitative research for solving complex behavioral challenges.

Roles and Responsibilities -
1. Develop an understanding of the substantive areas such as family planning, maternal health, nutrition etc. from the research and policy perspectives to support project teams in identifying knowledge gaps and the need for research
2. Design and conduct qualitative and design research in per-urban and rural contexts
3. Synthesize data and categorize patterns, interpret it in innovative and actionable ways to drive the (product/service/message) design process and provide inputs to develop scalable/feasible prototypes for experimental testing
4. Ensure all projects are developed and delivered through a sound research process; are contextualised by reviews of relevant literature; and employ appropriate design and methodologies
5. Apply and support a range of qualitative research methods including participatory approaches
6. Design interview instruments and guides
7. plan, manage and conduct projects ethically and professionally, in keeping with the goals and ethos of the Centre
8. Supervise research officers, assistants and manage consultants
9. produce comprehensive project plans, including objectives, outcomes and measures, budget, deliverables and milestones.
10 .Support the Centre’s stakeholders – internal and external through providing intelligence from research and evaluation

NOTE: This project will be based out of the Delhi/NCR region and will require a full time, on-site support from the consultant.

Skills Required

• A Master’s/PhD degree in social sciences, public policy, sociology, or related
fields
• Significant experience in a research role, with experience of a range of
research methods and applied research approaches that translated research
into
practice (e.g. product or service prototypes)
• Ability to shape and lead research projects, esp. in rural India
• Excellent management and organisational skills
• Flexible, self-motivated, able to manage multiple tasks efficiently, and team
player
• Ability to deal with unstructured and changing environments
• Fluency in Hindi and English
• Content/sentiment analysis software skills
• An understanding of experimental/quantitative research would be an
advantage
• An understanding of human-centered design research will be an advantage
• Great writing and presentation skills
• Comfortable with positivist, pragmatic empirics with a serious interest in
changing the world