POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT
ASSISTANT SCIENTIST
IITA-TZ-2024 – IRRI-009 -NRS- BAGAMOYO

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) on behalf of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) invites applications for the position of Assistant Scientist.

Background: The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is a nonprofit independent research and training organization. IRRI is a member of the Consultative Group of International Agricultural research (CGIAR) Consortium.

The Assistant Scientist under the Inclusive Markets and Value Chain (IMVC) Unit will be part of the unit’s market intelligence covering Sub-Saharan Africa. The successful applicant will assist and support in designing and conducting research studies related to market intelligence, consumer and farmer behaviour, and product concept design and testing. Furthermore, the incumbent will support the team in implementing mixed method approaches to generate and validate market and behavioural intelligence to inform the design of product profiles while engaging with multiple stakeholders across CGIAR’s Genetic Innovation Stakeholder Network. Additionally, the incumbent will assist the IMVC and the Transformative Policies and Investments Unit in implementing monitoring and evaluation activities across different projects.

The candidate will also assist in the improvement and development of research tools, data collection, analysis and interpretation of results, scientific publication in international peer-reviewed journals and overall dissemination efforts through reports, policy briefs, and presentations in national/international workshops and conferences

Duty Station: The position will be based in Bagamoyo.

Responsibilities

1.1. Purpose

• Support in identifying stakeholders’ current and future drivers of demand for crops, seeds and traits, and variation of demand according to gender, age and social groups, farmer types, agro-industry production requirements as well as consumer preferences
• Contribute to describing prioritized product market segments through reviewing and synthesizing sets of maps, articles and reports that describe prioritized market segments, to enable market intelligence for the design of gender-intentional product profiles
• Support in characterizing varietal demand to enable market intelligence for the design of seed system strategies. This will be through reviewing regional and crop-specific bulletins, reports and articles on demand and supply for seed, among other methodologies
• Assist with the implementation of mixed-method social-science research
• Assist with the implementation of monitoring and evaluation activities
• Assist in consolidating, evaluating, verifying and analyzing data related to research studies.

1.2 Engagement

• Contribute to collaborative engagement on methods and tool design to ensure comparability of results across crops and regions, not only in Africa but also globally
• Contribute to the strengthening the technical capacity of One CGIAR and its partners to use advanced tools and methods that convert global and regional challenges into regional impact opportunities for Genetic Innovation
• Support in initiating institutional change process by building regional, transdisciplinary CGIAR-NARES-SME teams
• Organize regular meetings with partners and stakeholders to discuss, streamline and implement activities
• Support in the development and communication of guidelines to internal and external stakeholders to bolster a collaborative implementation of project and programme activities

1.3 Delivery

• Identify resource persons and ensure the logistics are appropriate for defined purposes and engagement tasks
• Support in the verification of suggested methodologies and activities as well as draft training materials using both primary and secondary data sources
• Establish and maintain strong communication with NARES and CGIAR partners
• Implement activities geared towards a common framework by the identification and description of product market segments, gender-disaggregated assessment of needs and preferences for traits as well as prioritization of product market segments across regions and crops for scalability
• Provide inputs into activities geared to inform prioritization via foresight market intelligence analyses
• Support project and programme activities for monitoring and evaluation

Perform any other relevant duties as assigned by supervisor from time to time

Qualifications and experience

• MSc in social sciences preferred disciplines include psychology, sociology, anthropology, development studies, agricultural extension, environmental geography, or any other discipline that provides suitable advanced knowledge in social science with at least 3 years’ experience.

Skills and knowledge

1.1 mandatory

• Has proven technical proficiency in using qualitative and quantitative social science methods
• Has strong oral and written communication skills
• Has strong analytical skill
• Has good presentation skills
• Has excellent computer skills
• Is able to work independently with very minimal supervision

1.2 Preferred

• Experience in qualitative research methods, experience in identifying, setting up, and maintaining multi-stakeholder partnerships, Experience with qualitative impact assessment.

Work Condition and environment

May require occasional travels to other countries where IRRI operates.

General information:

General information:

The duration of the contract for all the four positions is two years renewable subject to performance and availability of funds. These are nationally recruited position and IITA offers a competitive remuneration package.