Director of Research

Forcier is seeking a Director of Research to ensure the delivery of high-quality research and data collection projects for its clients. Through direct management of Research Officers and Researchers, the Director of Research is responsible for ensuring the quality of all research-related deliverables generated by their research staff. In coordination with the Regional Director, the Director of Research will ensure that research staff are matched with clients and projects in a way that makes the best use of staff abilities, and ensures that staff have an equitable workload and high job satisfaction. The Director of Research plays a critical role in managing clients, including providing advice on key decisions related to research design by spelling out both the methodological and practical (i.e. budgetary and logistical) implications of a given decision. In addition, the Director of Research, in coordination with the Senior Director of Research and Forcier’s Global Technical Team, will be responsible for vetting and hiring new research staff and for orchestrating the capacity-building of existing staff. Finally, the Director of Research will work with their office’s business development team to ensure that all proposals are methodologically coherent, locally contextualized, profitable, and are in keeping with the highest standards of research quality.

Ideal Match

Forcier is looking for a highly self-motivated individual with significant academic training in research design, as well as experience managing and implementing field research projects in complex settings. Clear, solution-oriented thinking is essential. An ability to track and manage a variety of projects simultaneously, as well as a multitude of key staff, is required. The ideal candidate will be amicable under pressure and should be able to serve as both a patient teacher or mentor, as well as a task- and detail-oriented manager. Every day at Forcier is different, and we are looking for a Director of Research who is a proactive leader, strong communicator, and passionate about quality research.

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Daily Tasks

● Guide key decisions related to research aims and methodological design of projects at the proposal stage and during project implementation;

● Provide expert input on matters of sample design, questionnaire design, and analysis techniques/approaches

● Guide key decisions related to statistical analysis, including choices of appropriate inferential-statistical tests, data structure, weighting, and other adjustments to account for survey design (including stratification and clustering)

● Provide or appropriately delegate/assign the provision of quality assurance and quality control on all research-related deliverables (e.g. research protocols, analytical reports, datasets, and presentations;

● Review proposals and provide feedback to the business development team to ensure that all bids are competitive, methodologically coherent, and can be executed fluently by available staff, within proposed budgets and timelines;

● Actively track all key research staff, their levels of utilization, and their skill sets;

● Actively track all ongoing and incoming/nascent projects, and appropriately match people/teams and their toolkits with projects;

● Provide input on local context and other practical aspects of research execution, both internally and with our clients;

● Learn, teach, and uphold Forcier’s existing systems for ensuring quality research, and aid with the roll-out and adoption of new research-related systems as necessary.

● Serve as the primary point of contact with clients during the proposal stage and continue high-level management of the client relationship during implementation of projects, including planning and attending client meetings as necessary;

● Follow all standard work policies and procedures for the research department and conduct annual performance evaluations of research staff in conjunction with the Director of Field Operations;

● Maintain reasonable workloads and expectations for all research staff;

● Develop professional development plans for research staff to ensure appropriate skill-building and mentoring activities occur.

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Requirements

M.A. degree and at least 3 years of experience, or PhD and at least 1 year of experience. Appropriate graduate level education will be in political science, anthropology, international development, statistics, public health, or a related field. Irrespective of degree field, graduate level training in research methods and statistics is required.

Required Skills

● Graduate-level coursework in econometrics and inferential statistics, ideally including applied regression analysis, survey data analysis, data visualization, and power analysis

● Advanced knowledge of Stata required

● Demonstrated ability to clean and interpret real-world data, generating publishable insights

● Experience in managing teams and human resources to ensure successful completion of projects and objectives