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? 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.
IPA Research Protocols: Our partner organization Innovations for Poverty Action has a similar set of Research Protocols in place. They give a comprehensive overview on the steps to implement a high-quality field project.
RCT registration: All projects funded or implemented by J-PAL must be registered with the AEA RCT Registry. Affiliates are encouraged to register all their RCTs, not just those that are J-PAL-funded or run through a J-PAL office.
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.
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.

Services for affiliates

J-PAL provides services and resources to affiliates at every stage of the project life cycle. Some of these services are listed below; details and a more comprehensive list can be found in the slides from our annual webinar for new affiliates as well as in the FAQs for affiliates document.

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. Affiliates are encouraged to register all of their RCTs. (Note that some journals or funders also require trial registration in a public registry.)

J-PAL’s research team can provide affiliates assistance in registering their projects on the AEA RCT Registry, such as creating drafts based off of information in a research proposal, an application to your Institutional Review Board (IRB), narrative reports, etc. For help requests or questions, please contact [email protected]. The registry is only as meaningful as it is comprehensive; we appreciate your support in this effort.

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. Email [email protected].

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 July 6, 2022

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

Dates:

South Asia Research Staff Training: September 12-16, 2022 in Goa, India
North America Research Staff Training: October 17-27, 2022 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

Please see the North America and South Asia 2022 course websites for draft agendas, training content, and FAQs. As a preview, 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; Stata programming, from beginner to advanced; 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	$800	$1,100
External organizations	$1,300	$1,600

Registration

Interested in sending your staff to a Research Staff Training?

South Asia Research Staff Training: The link to register is here, and the registration deadline is July 29, 2022. Please find the cancellation policy here.
North America Research Staff Training: The link to register is here, and the registration deadline is September 30, 2022 (note: we are offering an early sign up discount of $100 for registration before September 1st.). Please find the cancellation policy here.

For information about the North America staff training, contact Jessica Sashihara, Research and Training Manager, J-PAL North America. For more information about the South Asia staff training, contact Saurabh Bhajibhakare, Associate Director of Research, J-PAL South Asia.

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.