Information for Affiliates

This page contains internal resources for J-PAL affiliates. Not an affiliate? Visit our public Research Resources.

Most of the resources linked on this page are accessible via Google Drive. Affiliates can request access using a Google account.

Questions? Check out our FAQs for J-PAL affiliates or email Sarah Kopper or [email protected].

Important policies

J-PAL has policies to help assure high quality, ethical, and transparent research practices in projects implemented or funded by J-PAL. Staff can help affiliates implement these requirements. We also offer data publication and trial registration assistance.

J-PAL Research Protocols: Our Research Protocols describe "minimum must dos" and best practices to ensure the ethical conduct of research, data security, and data quality. Please review these protocols carefully. All projects funded or carried out by J-PAL must adhere to these guidelines.
Code of conduct for the J-PAL community: We work to ensure that all members of our community, including our staff, researchers, and those associated with our implemented or funded projects and events, are respected, supported, and valued. This is a key component of our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and is a core value that will never change. Discrimination, harassment, and abuse have no place in our work and are not tolerated.
Data publication guidelines: All data collected for J-PAL-funded projects must be published in de-identified form as IRB protocols allow. Affiliates are additionally encouraged to publish data from all of their RCTs. Many funders have also begun to require publication of data that was collected as part of funded projects.
RCT registration: All projects funded or implemented by J-PAL must be registered with the AEA RCT Registry or an equivalent registry. Affiliates are encouraged to register all their RCTs, not just those that are J-PAL-funded or run through a J-PAL office.

Staff hiring and training

Staff recruitment

J-PAL has a centralized system for helping affiliates hire research associates and project managers. We host an annual recruitment drive November-January each year, though affiliates may post jobs to the system any time and can browse our applicant database. In addition, J-PAL's regional offices support the recruitment of local RAs and research staff throughout the year.

Research staff training

Updated May 23, 2023

J-PAL and IPA host joint trainings for affiliates' research staff twice per year.

Dates:

South Asia Research Staff Training: August 28 - September 1, 2023 in Goa, India
North America Research Staff Training: October 16-26, 2023 virtual over Zoom

The trainings will be delivered either in person over the course of one week (South Asia) or virtually over the course of two weeks (North America), with approximately 30-40 hours of lecture, breakout, and lab activities for each training. Both trainings will cover much of the same content; the primary differences are the time zone in which the content will be delivered and the virtual or in-person format.

The objective of our research staff training is to provide new staff with the theoretical and technical foundations to design and coordinate high-quality research studies. The training covers the basics of randomized evaluations in the social sciences, research ethics, and research transparency, as well as practical skills involved in managing a research project, designing effective questionnaires, ensuring data quality and security, collaborating with partner organizations, field team management, and data management and analysis.

Course coverage

Both courses cover theoretical and technical topics:

The theoretical topics include lectures on: research ethics; research design (theory of change, measurement, etc.); randomization theory; sample size and power.
The technical topics include lectures and labs on: questionnaire design; quality control in the field for digital and paper surveys; field team management; data management; programming an electronic survey in SurveyCTO; randomization lab; power calculations; data security.

Training fees

Training fees are determined by the course format as well as the type of organization where participants are based. Please note that the price differential between the in-person and virtual courses largely reflects the additional cost of accommodation, meals, and extended hours throughout the week for the in-person course.

J-PAL South Asia’s Research Staff Training: In Person in Goa, India

The training fee is $2,000 for any full-time staff working with J-PAL/IPA’s network of affiliated professors and invited researchers or with partner research organizations. It is $3,000 for participants from external organizations. This cost includes:

All training materials
Accommodation and all meals at the training site
Transportation between the Goa Airport and the training location at the beginning and end of the training
All applicable taxes

The training fee does not include air travel to Goa, personal laptops, or expenses outside of the training location and dates.

J-PAL North America’s Research Staff Training: Virtual over Zoom

For the virtual training, the fee per participant depends on organizational affiliation, country of work, and date of registration.

	Low- or middle-income country	High-income country
J-PAL/IPA research network and partner organizations	$900	$1,200
External organizations	$1,400	$1,700

Registration

Interested in sending your staff to a Research Staff Training?

South Asia Research Staff Training: Registration information will be posted in late June.
North America Research Staff Training: Registration information will be posted in late June.

Contact

North America staff training: Jessica Sashihara, Research and Training Manager, J-PAL North America
South Asia staff training: Saurabh Bhajibhakare, Associate Director of Research, J-PAL South Asia

Data publication

J-PAL's research team can work with you to clean, label, and document datasets collected as part of a randomized evaluation before publishing them in the J-PAL Dataverse or another data repository of your choice. This service is offered free of charge for any RCT conducted by a J-PAL affiliate or any study funded by J-PAL. We can also advise on data security protocols, data de-identification best practices, and more.

Contact: [email protected]

Research resources

Research manuals: Our public Research Resources are designed around the life cycle of a project, from grant proposals to disseminating results, and contain links to templates, manuals, checklists, and more. In addition to these resources, J-PAL maintains a Google Drive folder that contains some internal research resources to which all our affiliates and staff have access (please click on "request access" if you cannot see the folder).

Human subjects: In addition to our public resources on writing IRB proposals and ethical conduct of RCTs, the IRB folder in the J-PAL shared Google Drive contains resources relating to human subjects and IRB, such as template consent forms and confidentiality agreements. These resources are internal to J-PAL staff and affiliates; please click on "request access" if you cannot see the folder. J-PAL also requires that all staff maintain current Human Subjects certifications through CITI or the NIH:

CITI (MIT Staff)
CITI (J-PAL, non-MIT staff)
NIH (IPA and others)

Budgets and grant writing: J-PAL's publicly available Research Resources include guides to writing grant proposals and grant management. In addition, J-PAL maintains a Google Drive folder with internal research resources to which all our affiliates and staff have access (please click on "request access" if you cannot see the folder). The Grant proposals section of the Google Drive folder contains budget templates and more.

AEA RCT Registry: In 2012, the American Economic Association, in cooperation with J-PAL, implemented the AEA RCT Registry. All projects funded or implemented by J-PAL must be registered on the AEA or an equivalent registry. Affiliates are encouraged to register all of their RCTs. (Note that some journals or funders also require trial registration in a public registry.) The registry is only as meaningful as it is comprehensive; we appreciate your support in this effort. For help requests or questions, please contact [email protected].