RESEARCH ASSOCIATE – TELANGANA INCLUSIVE LIVELIHOOD PROGRAM (TGILP)

Position: Research Associate
Project: Telangana Inclusive Livelihood Program (TGILP)

Start Date (earliest): ASAP

Length of Commitment: 6 months

Organization: J-PAL South Asia at IFMR

Language requirement: Telugu, English, Hindi

Location: Hyderabad, Telangana

Principal Investigators (PIs): Prof. Selim Gulesci & Doireann O'Brien (PhD Student), Trinity College Dublin

Job Description:

The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) was established in 2003 as a research center at the Economics Department at MIT. Since then, it has grown into a global network of researchers who use randomized evaluations to answer critical policy questions in the fight against poverty. J-PAL is propelled by a first-rate team dedicated to research, policy, training, and other vital work, supporting J-PAL's mission to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence.

J-PAL South Asia, which is based at the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR) in India, analyses and disseminates research results and builds partnerships with policymakers to ensure that policy is driven by evidence, and that programs proven effective are scaled up.

Project Description:

The Telangana Inclusive Livelihoods Program (TGILP) aims to enable sustainable economic advancement for marginalised communities in the state, including Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), single women, and survivors of the Jogini system. Anchored in BRAC’s successful Graduation Approach, the program supports the Poorest of the Poor (PoP) households through a comprehensive package of asset transfers, cash assistance, coaching and mentoring, and linkages to government entitlements. A key innovation under TGILP is the integration of a climate resilience lens. In addition to enhancing economic outcomes, the program is designed to strengthen participants’ adaptive capacities and enhance their knowledge and practices for managing climate-related risks.

We are seeking a motivated Research Associate to lead the baseline survey and manage the field activities. The role involves engagement with partner NGOs, government stakeholders and internal teams to ensure robust evidence-driven implementation of the TGILP program.

Key Responsibilities include (but not limited to):

• Designing survey questionnaires, conducting quantitative and qualitative research, refining study design and surveying instruments

• Managing teams: Train and supervise both field-based and data operations teams consisting of project assistants, field managers, field-based surveyors, data entry operators and other field and office staff

• Travel to project sites to monitor and coordinate field activities for primary data collection during intervention monitoring

• Overseeing the implementation of the evaluation in accordance to the research design in association with our partner organizations

• Ensuring that the project complies with IRB and JPAL data collection and security protocols

• Engaging with and managing relationships with stakeholders.

• Maintaining relationship with partner organizations at various levels as required in the project

• Coordinating with teams across different verticals within JPAL on a variety of operational tasks

• Supervising data collection and data-entry, and ensuring data quality and productivity

• Assisting with data cleaning, preliminary data analysis, and preparation of documents and presentations for dissemination

• Reporting to supervisor and PI on all of the above-mentioned activities and any other work assigned

• Maintain compliance with all J-PAL protocols and policies.

Qualifications and Experience:

• Master's/Bachelor’s degree in economics, social sciences, public policy, or related fields

• Relevant Experience of 2-3 years

• Willingness to travel

• Excellent management/ organizational skills and able to solve unexpected problems

• Excellent quantitative skills (required)

• Working knowledge of Stata (required), SurveyCTO (preferred)

• Familiarity with RCTs

• Flexible, self-motivating, able to manage multiple tasks efficiently, and team player

• Ability to deal with unstructured and dynamic environments

• Prior experience in conducting large scale data collection (preferred)

Note on Work Authorizations:

• Candidates must have work authorization to work