Research Manager - Precision Development

Location: India; strong preference for Ahmedabad, Gujarat or Kolkata, West Bengal

Salary: Commensurate with experience

Position: Full-time

Application deadline: September 21, 2023, 6pm IST (applications may be reviewed as they are submitted) 

PxD is looking for a driven, creative and independent person to join a high-performing, flexible and non-hierarchical team as a Research Manager (India), focusing on expanding our portfolio of work supporting Indian smallholder farmers who are increasingly affected by climate change. The successful candidate will work closely with affiliated researchers and collaborators and play a central role in managing impactful research initiatives, substantially contributing to PxD's programs that test new ideas and measure their impacts. The successful candidate must have a strong interest in and commitment to PxD's mission to provide actionable information and other cost-effective, scalable services to people in poverty so that they can sustainably improve their incomes and well-being. 

Requirements

Master’s degree in economics, agricultural economics, public policy, or a closely related field,  and experience in the following domains are desired:   

• Professional experience managing at least three projects involving design and management of rigorous research and/or evidence-based programs in developing countries
• Adept at consuming large amounts of academic and scientific literature as well as other technical information, synthesizing key findings, and applying takeaways to program and research design.
• Deep understanding of economics and randomized evaluations.
• Excellent knowledge of Stata or R or similar software for data analysis
• Exceptional grasp of the research & program life cycle and ability to supervise all activities on the ground.
• Demonstrated experience managing program and/or research staff.
• Demonstrated experience managing partnerships with an implementing organization, technical experts, and/or governments.
• Excellent organizational skills, detail-oriented, and ability to work both independently and collaboratively.
• Fluency in English. Excellent oral and written communication skills. 

Preferred:

• Experience managing programs or research projects in the Indian context, especially within the agriculture sector.
• Demonstrated experience building scaling pathways for a program. 
• Understanding and application of research ethics for human subjects in the social sciences.
• Understanding of the impact of climate change on smallholder agriculture
•  Fluency in Gujarati or Bengali and/or Hindi language.

Responsibilities (including but not limited to): 

• Collaborate closely with PxD researchers and partner organizations to create and launch projects aligned with PxD’s areas of interest, with a focus on climate. Conduct needs assessments and execute scoping activities for informed project launches.
• Supervise from start to finish the implementation of research and programmatic activities, collaborating with PxD-affiliated researchers and partners encompassing research design, data collection and management, and analysis.
• Support the development, submission, and management of Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocols, renewals, and amendments for research projects, ensuring ethical compliance.
• Guide teams in the use of evidence-based approaches for research and program implementation, maintaining PxD’s standards for technical appropriateness and rigor.
• Develop and manage research work plans, stakeholder communications, and implementation monitoring systems for PxD’s research projects.
• Directly supervise and mentor project staff (Research Associates, Project Associates, Field Staff, Interns) on technical research activities, like power calculations and quantitative analysis.
• Oversee documentation of research activities, results, and decision rationale.
• Learn about and stay current with cutting-edge global climate change mitigation research, evidence, and methodologies related to agrifood systems.
• Manage partner relations and collaborate with external stakeholders to ensure the smooth implementation of research field operations.Contribute to internal and external communications, disseminating research findings through briefs, blogs, reports, and presentations, with an emphasis on climate.
• Contribute to PxD’s institutional knowledge management and internal learning efforts, specifically in the realm of climate change research.
• Play a role in general management tasks essential for the organization’s functionality and success – including budgeting, hiring, and strategic planning.

About PxD  

PxD is a rapidly scaling global non-profit that harnesses the power of technology, data science and behavioral economics to provide targeted information to farmers in low- and middle-income countries. Providing the right information to the right people, in the right way and at the right time, increases incomes, protects the environment and improves well-being. We are evidence-based: we test our interventions with randomized controlled trials to prove our impact and cost effectiveness, to simultaneously learn from and improve our service, and to demonstrate our value to funders and partners. There are few programmes in international development that are as demonstrably cost effective as ours. We currently work in seven countries in Africa, and Asia, and are expanding as more governments and organizations look for innovative ways to use new technologies to empower people across low and middle income countries.

About PxD’s climate work

PxD works with partners to support smallholder farmers to increase their resilience to climate shocks and improve productivity and income. Our initiatives help farmers have better information so they can make better production and investment decisions that increase their resilience. Priorities for our climate adaptation activities include: 

• Accelerate the distribution and adoption of proven climate-resilient seeds for staple crops like rice, wheat, maize, and chickpea - developed for tolerance to drought or flood - at scale in partnership with government partners and others.
  • Develop rapid identification, tracking, and alert systems for pest and crop disease outbreaks (one of the top climate-related challenges cited by farmers) using recent advances in technology to crowdsource, aggregate, and disseminate information to avoid crop losses.
• Identify hyper-local forecast providers and incorporate weather forecasts into PxD advisory services. Specifically, monsoon prediction to inform crop choice, medium-range forecasts to inform the timing of agricultural practices, and short-range forecasts to help farmers optimize agricultural activities. 

While smallholder farmers are not responsible for emitting most of the greenhouse gasses causing climate change, they can also benefit from activities that reduce emissions and improve ecosystems. PxD recently partnered with the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development IGSD) to explore evidence-backed climate change mitigation opportunities for smallholder farmers and identified several priority scalable activities. Our priorities include:

• Accelerate the dissemination and adoption of scalable farmer-friendly decision-support tools for Site Specific Nutrient Management (SSNM), like Leaf Color Charts (LCCs) to help farmers reduce the overuse of nitrogen fertilizers. 
• Advance distributive justice of voluntary carbon credit markets, and ensure smallholder farmers equitably tap into their financing potential by working on standard market processes required for these markets to be a realistic pathway for improved livelihoods and credible climate change mitigation.
• Develop an actionable pull financing mechanism to incentivize investment in R&D for climate change mitigation activities with Global South smallholder farmers, with enhanced rock weathering (ERW) as a use case.  

PxD’s activities in India are implemented in partnership with Behaviour Change Advisory Services (BCAS) LLP