Senior Research Specialist – (National candidate only) At Save the Children

Role Purpose

The Senior Research Specialists are a senior Technical Expert and a member of the Extended Senior Management Team (ESMT) and play a vital role in scientific evidence generation to inform programming and policy options. S/he has overall responsibility for quality of evidence generated through research and MEAL activities.

Specifically, s/he is responsible for:

• Designing, managing, analysing, and reporting research and evaluations, as well as relevant learning activities. At the project level, s/he will take a leading role to promote evidence based decision making and learning to improve the interventions. At the organizational level, he/she will support the Head of Evidence and Learning to maximize existing/new fora at national and global levels to share and learn from program evidence, including project, thematic meetings, forums, etc.
• Design, implementation and management of Research and MEAL for the assigned projects. S/he will coordinate with project staff and partners to roll out Save the Children MEAL system and ensure specific projects have appropriate and effective MEAL plan.
• Helping to build the capacity of project staff and partners in MEAL, database design, data collection, data entry and analysis, accountability mechanism development, and quality benchmarks. S/he manages data collection, verification, analysis, and reporting on the project statistic, indicators at both project and SCI global levels, including Total Reach, Quality Benchmarks, Project Accountability, and Implementation Learnings.
• MEAL reporting for the assigned projects, including M&E report against indicators, Baseline and Evaluation reports, and other lessons learned and best practices documents. S/he will widely share these findings with partners and the project teams to inform project design and implementation, and building evidence for the project learning agenda.
• Collaborating with project manager and MEAL manager to ensure effective MEAL KPI compliances and reporting system.

Qualifications and experience

• Completed Ph.D. Degree in education, social work, psychology, sociology, demography, operations research, statistics, econometrics, economy, development studies, or related field of social science from internationally recognized universities (completed Master degree could be considered with solid skills in research and M&E, and extensive experience).

Essential

• Minimum of 10 years of relevant working experience in monitoring and evaluation if holding a Master Degree, OR one 2 year of working experience in research and/or M&E will be considered if holding a Ph.D. Degree from internationally recognised universities.
• Comprehensive knowledge and skills in quantitative research methodologies especially survey.
• Advanced knowledge and skills in statistical and econometric analysis for impact evaluation using statistical applications including SPSS, STATA, and/or relevant applications.
• Excellent statistical report writing skill in English and Khmer.
• Abilities to communicate findings from advanced statistical/econometric analysis to general audiences.
• Good knowledge of monitoring and evaluation in development work.
• Good knowledge of and skills in M & E methods and practices.
• Knowledge to develop mobile data collection platforms.
• Knowledge of Microsoft Office, including MS Excel.
• Strong analysis skills.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
• Strong facilitation and presentation skills will be considered a definite advantage.
• Fluency in written and spoken English and Khmer.
• Ability to work with minimum supervision, and solve problems independently.

Contract length:** Unspecified Duration Contract (UDC)

The Organisation

We employ approximately 25,000 people across the globe and work on the ground in over 100 countries to help children affected by crises, or those that need better healthcare, education and child protection. We also campaign and advocate at the highest levels to realise the right of children and to ensure their voices are heard.

We are working towards three breakthroughs in how the world treats children by 2030:

• No child dies from preventable causes before their 5th birthday
• All children learn from a quality basic education and that,
• Violence against children is no longer tolerated

We know that great people make a great organization, and that our employees play a crucial role in helping us achieve our ambitions for children. We value our people and offer a meaningful and rewarding career, along with a collaborative and inclusive workplace where ambition, creativity, and integrity are highly valued.