Evidence to Scale Manager - J-PAL Global

The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research center working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Anchored by a network of more than 1,100 top researchers at universities around the world, J-PAL conducts innovative research and builds powerful partnerships to solve the world’s greatest challenges. J-PAL was launched at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2003 and is directed by Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, along with Ben Olken. It has over 500 research, policy, scale, training, and operations staff across Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East, North America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. For more information visit povertyactionlab.org

Position overview

J-PAL Global’s Evidence to Scale (E2S) vertical plays a key role in supporting the J-PAL network and our partners in this process of translating rigorous evidence into policy and practice at scale. To date, over 850 million people have been reached by programs or policies that have been informed by evaluations by J-PAL affiliated researchers.

As a member of the E2S vertical, the E2S Manager will work closely with J-PAL Global leadership to support the J-PAL network (affiliated and invited researchers) and partners (NGOs, governments, and funders) in the process of translating rigorous evidence into policy and practice at scale, to reach even more people. 

Principal Duties and Responsibilities (Essential Functions)

The primary responsibilities of the Evidence to Scale Manager will center on: 

• Organizational learning: Facilitate organizational learning at J-PAL on evidence use, scale, and government partnerships, including organizing our E2S internal learning series and our community of practice in collaboration with E2S leadership and regional office colleagues around the world. Contribute to, and in some cases lead, efforts to codify and disseminate organizational learning more broadly. Support E2S vertical’s efforts to ensure J-PAL is learning from other actors focused on catalyzing the scale of evidence-based interventions and building partnerships with government to support them in using evidence.
• Initiative management: Working with the Senior E2S Associate, co-manage the Innovation in Government Initiative (IGI) - J-PAL’s primary funding initiative focused on scale and evidence use. Includes organizing funding competition rounds, coordinating review processes, liaising with our Finance & Operations team to manage grants funded by the initiative, engaging with applicants and grantees on the substance and logistics of their proposals/projects, and reporting to the initiative donors. Draw on lessons from IGI to support other J-PAL funding initiatives that are interested in strengthening their focus on evidence use and scale to do so. 
• Advising and fundraising on specific E2S opportunities: Serve as a trusted advisor and thought partner to J-PAL regional offices, researchers in J-PAL’s research network, and J-PAL partners on adapting evidence-based interventions to new contexts, piloting and scaling evidence-based interventions, and designing new interventions with scalability in mind from the beginning. Examples of the range of topics you might collaborate on include: assessing the scalability of an innovation, developing a scale strategy with a government partner in a particular country or region, creating process monitoring systems to ensure high-quality implementation at scale, and identifying opportunities to improve scalability and cost-effectiveness of delivery models through better use of technology. 
• Partnerships: Support, develop, and, in some cases, lead partnerships with global organizations around E2S-related topics and opportunities. 
• Tools and resources: Identify, develop, and manage tools and resources to enable J-PAL colleagues and practitioner and policymakers partners to better use evidence and to support our research network to more effectively support policymakers and practitioners to use and apply evidence.  
• Donor engagement support: Support efforts to mobilize funding to support J-PAL’s E2S efforts, with philanthropies, bilateral and multilateral donors, and high-networth individuals. Includes engaging with our fundraising staff on donor research, drafting materials for donors, and participating in donor discussions. 

As the Evidence to Scale vertical is still evolving, we anticipate this role will be fluid and may change over time; we therefore seek candidates who are excited about, and able to operate effectively within, that fluid environment, including taking on other workstreams not enumerated here that further the Evidence to Scale vertical and organization’s mission, when needed.

Supervision received

This role will be coached by the Evidence to Scale Senior Manager / Lead.

Supervision exercised

None

Qualifications and skills

We are looking for someone with both a passion for and experience relevant to enabling others to use rigorous evidence to drive cost-effective improvements in the lives of the poor at scale. 

• Education: You have a Master's degree with significant coursework in public policy, public administration, international development, international affairs, economics, or a related field and have demonstrated academic interest in rigorous evidence about poverty alleviation.
• Experience: You have at least 6 or more years of relevant and substantial work experience. This experience should include at least two years of experience working in a low- or middle-income country, applying rigorous evidence to program or policy design and implementation, and scaling one or more evidence-informed development intervention(s). Ideally, in this work, you have either worked for or with governments and collaborated with coalitions of organizations and people including researchers. You have experience getting things done even in contexts where you lack direct control and are adept at using advice, influence, and support to enable the work of others. 
• Mindset and management: You are hypothesis-driven, thrive in navigating situations and workstreams with no ‘one right answer,’ adept at identifying and weighing trade-offs relating to time, funding, and other scarce resources, and able to juggle multiple projects simultaneously. You are passionate about international development policy and the rigorous research that informs it. You are self-motivated, humble, work hard, and enjoy collaborating in teams. 
• Skills: You are very comfortable using Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc.) and learning computer applications that J-PAL staff more broadly need to use, including Salesforce. Experience using Slack to communicate across team and office silos and to communicate within distributed teams is a plus. Knowledge of French, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Bahasa Indonesia, or other languages spoken in our regions of work is a plus. 
• Communication: You are a strong communicator, able to communicate clearly in writing and orally with diverse audiences from around the world. Ideally, you are also a skilled presenter, adept at using well-developed slides, when appropriate. 
• Organization: You are a strategic thinker. You can handle managing multiple projects at once with little supervision, meet deadlines, and effectively manage your time, as well as others’. You are a strong upward communicator and manager, proactively sharing updates, escalating concerns, and teeing up recommendations or decisions on which you need engagement. 
• Cultural competencies: You are comfortable and adept at working in a diverse and multicultural work environment, with colleagues, partners, and policymakers from around the world. You display sensitivity, adaptability, and inclusivity in your engagement with people from diverse backgrounds including age, ability, culture, gender, nationality, race and ethnicity, religion, sexuality, socioeconomic status, and other identities. We appreciate candidates who have familiarity with concepts and frameworks such as racial equity or gender analyses.
• Attitude: You love learning. You thrive thinking in a cross-sectoral and cross-regional way. You are self-motivated, humble, work hard, and enjoy working in teams. You value and are comfortable receiving feedback, providing feedback, and supporting the growth and development of others.
• Travel: Ability and willingness to travel 10-15% of the time. 

Compensation

Information about the pay range and pay grade for this position can be found here.

Benefits

Staff based in the United States will be employed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

J-PAL hires highly qualified staff and rewards them accordingly. Total compensation packages are competitive for the non-profit international development field with excellent MIT benefits, including comprehensive health insurance, a 401(k) match and pension-based retirement plan, tuition assistance, commuter benefits, MIT community discounts, a generous vacation policy, and more.

We like working at MIT and think you will too. J-PAL also values work-life balance and offers flexible work days throughout the year; Cambridge-based staff are required to work in-person at least two days per week. We like working at MIT and think you will too.

Location: This preferred location for this role is based in Cambridge, MA, at the J-PAL Global Office at MIT. Cambridge based employees are required to come to the office, in-person at least two days every week (currently those days are Tuesdays and Wednesdays for all staff). Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States.