Summary

This resource contains a list of institutions and programs that offer pre-doctoral positions (pre-docs) or research assistantships (RA-ships), which are typically full-time jobs supporting faculty research that lasts one to two years. These positions are particularly helpful for people who are considering a PhD but are not completely sure they're ready or that a PhD is what they want. This is not a comprehensive list but rather can serve as a starting point in your search for these positions. Many of these resources are tailored for African scholars, though most are not limited to African applicants.¹

General information on pre-doctoral programs

The Economics Pre-Doctoral Fellowship: What is it, and should you apply for one? This article on Medium (published in the Renaissance Economist) explores what exactly pre-doctoral fellowships are, what to consider before applying for one, why they were established, the current landscape in the economics research field, what the data on successful candidates looks like, and links to other research on the efficacy of research assistant positions in preparing students for a PhD in economics. 

Women in Economics and Policy Pre-doc and RA positions guide describes in detail how to put together a strong application for a pre-doctoral position including a CV guide, the type of data test applicants need to take, and interview tips. It also tackles several frequently asked questions. 

Across regions

The National Bureau of Economics Research has two pages posting full-time job listings. The Research Assistant Positions – not at the NBER page lists full-time jobs associated with research projects led by NBER-affiliated researchers, but which do not involve employment through NBER. The Research Assistant Positions – at NBER page lists similar positions that do involve NBER employment. The positions listed may be suitable for bachelor's degree candidates, graduate students, or post-docs. Positions typically have an expected duration of one to three years, and often give priority to candidates who are planning to continue to the next stage of their academic career upon completion of the position. The non-NBER positions are more likely to be open to international applicants. 

Econ RA Listings is a Twitter account that retweets research assistant (RA) openings for economists at various institutions in the nonprofit sector, academic institutions, and parastatals from all over the globe. They also retweet individual professors looking for RAs. 

The Sadie Collective aims to address the pipeline and pathway problem for Black women in economics and related fields through bringing together Black women at different career stages to share resources, network, receive mentorship, professional development, and advocate for broader visibility in the field.

North America

Pathways to Research and Doctoral Careers (PREDOC) is a consortium of universities and research institutions whose mission is to foster a talented and diverse population of researchers in the quantitative social sciences, with a particular focus on pre-doctoral programs in business and economics. PREDOC posts pre-docs and RAships at institutions across the United States.

The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University offers a limited number of research fellow opportunities. These are full-time staff positions that last either one or two years, during which the Fellows gain exposure to current academic research at Kellogg as well as hands-on experience assisting those projects. These are excellent opportunities for anyone who is considering applying to a PhD in a discipline related to business research. They are interested in attracting pre-doctoral candidates from all parts of the world and can sponsor J-1 visas if necessary. 

The Pre-Doctoral Research in Economics Program at the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics at the University of Chicago is intended to serve as a bridge between undergraduate and graduate school for students interested in empirical economics. The program offers unique research and professional training opportunities. The program is very interested in attracting African candidates, provides visa support, and has a well-developed infrastructure to support applicants who need work authorization.

The Tobin Center Economics Pre-Doctoral Fellows Program at Yale University supports policy-relevant economics research by providing a high-quality education and training experience for individuals with bachelor’s or master’s degrees who are considering pursuing a PhD in economics or closely related discipline. An important part of the mission of this program is to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in economics. They encourage prospective applicants from Africa to apply and can sponsor pre-docs on J-1 visas. 

The Economics Pre-Doctoral Research Fellowship Program at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research is a full-time, one- to two-year post-baccalaureate program designed to prepare individuals wishing to gain valuable training toward a career in academic research in economics or public policy. Fellows are appointed as non-matriculated graduate students and have the opportunity to fully engage in the intellectual life at Stanford University. The fellowship offers tuition, health insurance, and a living stipend. The Program is able to sponsor J-1 visas for fellows who may need one. The King Center, which is part of SIEPR, has a new pre-doctoral program and they can sponsor J-1 visas as well.

Pre-doctoral research assistant positions at the Princeton University International Economics Section are one-year term positions with the possibility of renewal for a second year, contingent upon continued funding and satisfactory performance. Successful candidates will gain experience working with some of the world’s leading researchers in international economics. Pre-doctoral research assistants are expected to assemble and manage data sets, to program and simulate non-linear models, and to assist faculty members in all aspects of their research.

The Pre-Doctoral Training Program at the Population Studies and Training Center of Brown University provides a demography training program for pre-doctoral graduate students in affiliated departments, including anthropology, economics, sociology, and public health. This is made available through the International Fellowship for international trainees. 

The Kabir Banerjee Pre-Doctoral Fellowship seeks to expand the representation of researchers from low- and lower-middle-income countries in leading pre-doctoral programs. Successful candidates will receive Weiss Fund endorsement in applying to pre-approved two-year pre-doctoral research positions at leading universities. The fellowship supports candidates with substantial interest and potential for success in an academic career in development economics who otherwise may have limited access to mentorship and training from leading economists.

Opportunity Insights is a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization based at Harvard University. It conducts scientific research using “big data” on how to improve upward mobility and works collaboratively with local stakeholders to translate these research findings into policy change. They also train the next generation of social scientists and practitioners to improve opportunity for all. They are recruiting full time pre-doctoral fellows to join their research team. 

Europe

Inomics is a site that collates various career opportunities in the European Union (EU) for economists at all levels of training from internships, consultancy positions, research assistantships, PhD candidates, post-docs and professors. Most of the RA positions are at universities in EU member states.

Predoctoral Research Fellows in Economics at the University of Oxford’s Global Priorities Institute (GPI) conduct economics research within guidelines provided by the Assistant Director of GPI, as well as contributing to the planning of the GPI’s economics research and the organizational development of their research group. They also provide research assistance to GPI researchers and faculty in the Department of Economics. For research assistance, they will try to match pre-doctoral research fellows with a faculty member at the Department of Economics at Oxford with related research interests, or with another economist affiliated with GPI.

The University of Zurich’s Pre-Doc Program at the Department of Economics is a great opportunity for students to see if a career in economics and academic research is right for them and to prepare them for a PhD in economics. The program targets individuals with a bachelor’s or master’s degree in economics, social sciences, public policy, mathematics, statistics, or a related field. Applicants should have a strong quantitative background, be considering pursuing a PhD in economics, and have an interest in learning cutting-edge research methods.

Positions at non-university institutions

American Institute for Economic Research (AIER)’s graduate fellowships are twelve-week programs for graduate students who are working in areas that advance AIER’s mission: to affirm free enterprise, economic liberty, property rights, sound money, and legal institutions that shore up the rights of individuals to be free to the extent that their actions do not impinge on the rights of others. Each graduate fellow is expected to make substantive headway on a project, such as a dissertation or thesis, that will directly advance their academic studies.

The Busara Center for Behavioral Economics is a leading behavioral science organization headquartered in Kenya that believes in a world where evidence-based and context-specific solutions are routinely implemented to address the world’s most pressing problems. You can find opportunities here. Experience with Busara is an asset when applying to an economics PhD program, especially if you are interested in behavioral economics.

Innovations for Poverty Action is a global research and policy nonprofit that discovers and promotes effective solutions to global poverty problems by bringing together researchers and decision-makers. Their work relies heavily on researchers conducting randomized evaluations and so often requires research assistants and associates to help with this work. The experience gained here has proven valuable in making former researcher assistants’ PhD applications stand out. 

The Robert S. McNamara PhD Research Fellowship is aimed at pre-docs from developing countries who are World Bank members. Applicants are required to have a master’s or be enrolled in a PhD in economics, public policy, political science, data science, statistics, international development, sociology, or mathematics. The program will sponsor a US G-4 visa for successful applicants. 

Summary

This resource explains why visibility is important to your work as a researcher and simple ways to increase your visibility online. Creating a strong online presence is essential for researchers to boost credibility, visibility, and reputation.¹

Why visibility might be relevant for a researcher

A strong online presence can be an important tool for building a network. It has the potential  to increase your credibility, visibility, and enhance your reputation as a knowledgeable researcher in an international setting. 

• Credibility: You are who you say you are. A reliable digital footprint, highlighting your legitimacy as a researcher, may be important for research funding organizations in their selection process. Prior to granting funds, funding organizations may search online for the applicant to confirm the authenticity of the details provided by the applicant. Particularly for lesser known researchers, an online profile can be a supportive tool to reassure external reviewers of your credibility. 
• Visibility: In a growing digital world, an online presence has become more and more important. A strong online presence allows you to showcase your work and be visible to a broader audience. Curating an online presence with all your work in an easily accessible format can increase the likelihood that it will be read. 
• Reputation building: A strong online presence can be a good signal to those who are looking to connect with you. There may be interesting co-authors who are interested in collaborating with you (and vice versa); being more visible online may encourage potential co-authors to connect.

Building an academic website

A department biography page on a university website can be sparse on details, difficult to maintain, and can quickly become outdated—if this service is even offered by your university. 

A personal academic website that you create and maintain yourself, on the other hand, lets you share more about yourself, your research interests, and your active and completed projects. Personal sites are also easier to update regularly and stay with you across job transitions if moving between institutions.

Many researchers use Google sites, which is free and easy to use. Other free options include Wordpress and Weebly. 
Free options will have the name of the service in the url—e.g., a Google site might have the url “sites.google.com/site/janesmith.” It is completely normal and accepted for researchers to have websites with the host name in the url, as long as the url includes something intuitive and professional (like your first and last name). A simple and professional url can help to raise your online presence by ensuring accurate search results on search engines like Google. If you’d like a custom domain name (e.g., jane-smith.com), you can register one for a fee with sites like domains.google.com, godaddy.com or register.com.

Personal academic sites are usually as follows:

• Homepage: The contents should include:
  • Your name and contact information (university email and address). Make sure your contact details are correct and that you monitor the email address listed 
  • A professional looking headshot
  • A brief bio including your academic affiliation and position as well as a short research statement or featured work
  • Links to your university page, Google Scholar page (more below), or other websites you use in a professional capacity
• Research: Include separate sections for published papers, books/book chapters, working papers, and works in progress. Within each section, papers can be ordered reverse chronologically (most recent at the top) or reverse chronologically by topic area. You can also add brief blurbs or abstracts for papers if you’d like, as well as adding links to published or working papers. (When linking to published papers, be sure to use the stable DOI link.)
• CV: your CV can be added as a PDF or you can embed a link to a Dropbox or Google Drive file of a PDFed CV. It’s important to keep this version of your CV updated - it’s where the general public is most likely to find you. See more below.
• Other optional sections:
  • Research statement/about: A description of your research interests
  • Fieldwork: List and description of active and past projects
  • Teaching: If applicable
  • Data and code: If you have any publicly available, e.g., on Github or elsewhere. These materials can also be embedded when listing your projects.

The design of your website should be simple, professional, and easy to read. Don’t use a patterned background, bright/unusual colors, or fonts you would feel uncomfortable using in formal writing. Use dark text on a light background, which is much easier to read than the reverse. Remember to proofread your content. See more tips from Elsevier. 

A few examples running the gamut in terms of complexity are below. For each site, note the overall layout of each page, the tabs used (CV, research, etc.), the content of each tab, and the domain name.

• Francis Annan
• Lauren Falcao Bergquist 
• Alex Eble
• Anant Nyshadham

Writing (and maintaining) a CV

Your CV may be the first thing people visiting your website look at. It should provide a concise, comprehensive, and well-organized view into your background and work. 

Beyond posting it publicly on your website, you’ll likely have to include a CV when applying for grants, fellowships, or other positions. Keeping yours updated means you can send it off quickly without having to make major updates. 

To do this, it’s best to have a master version of your CV that lists everything you’ve done and shorter, tailored versions for specific positions or grant proposals. Only share a PDF version so that others can’t easily edit it. Using a Latex template can save you a lot of time in formatting the CV properly; see some examples linked below.

Academic CVs are longer than a resume and should include everything relevant to the position, grant, or other activity for which you are applying—there is no page limit. Visually, they should look professional and clean and be easy to read. Keep the text in black and in a standard, professional font, and don’t include photos. 

The sections listed below are typical of academic CVs; include whichever sections are relevant and in whatever order you prefer. Typically, items within sections are ordered reverse chronologically, i.e., the most recent item goes first. Common sections are:

• Name and contact information (always at the top). At a minimum, include a link to your website and your email address. You can also include your work mailing address and phone number.
• Education: Degrees, universities, dates
• Publications: Include the full citation, with the journal information, and a DOI if available. 
• Working papers: Include the titles and co-authors and a link to the paper if available.
• Works in progress: Include the titles and co-authors. This can be combined with the above or kept as a separate section if you have a number of early-stage papers that are far from a finished draft.
• Grants: List the project title/topic, the funder, your role, any co-investigators, the amount, and the dates of the award.
• Presentations: If you have a very long list, you don’t need to include details here. For example, you could write: 2019: NEUDC, PacDev, ASSA, Michigan, Berkeley, Stanford, MIT. Some people split presentations further (e.g., invited seminars vs conferences) depending on what they want to emphasize.
• Teaching: List the course, the school, and the dates. Some people list teaching evaluations (e.g., 4.5/5) for each course. Graduate students can also list teaching assistant (TA) experience, just be sure to indicate for which courses you were the instructor vs. the TA.
• Awards/fellowships: List name of the award/fellowship, awarding institution (if not evident in the name of the award), and dates (years only).
• Referee service: List the journals for which you’ve served as a referee (no dates or frequencies needed). This list is usually alphabetical.
• Service: e.g., Service at your university or professional association, such as serving on a committee.

A couple of example CVs and advice for CV writing include:

• Sample CVs from MIT and Harvard. 
• See also the CVs of J-PAL affiliates, including Meredith Fowlie, Arya Gaduh, Koichiro Ito, and Yusuf Neggers
• CV writing advice from MIT, Cornell, and Elsevier

Latex templates:

• Overleaf and the site Latex Templates have a number of options. Some good ones include:
  • Medium length professional CV
  • Long professional CV
  • Medium length graduate CV

Creating a Google Scholar profile

Google Scholar pulls in and lists your publications and citations in one place, and is a low-cost way to increase your visibility. It should complement, not replace, a personal academic website, as it only lists publications. 

You can set up your Google Scholar profile so that updates are done automatically or only with your review. Whichever route you choose, it is useful to periodically review your Scholar profile, as Google sometimes misattributes papers or categorizes publications that you may not want listed yet (e.g., very early drafts posted on conference websites). You can also sign up for alerts whenever one of your works is cited, which can be a useful way to see how your work is being referenced.

See Isaac Mbiti's and Tavneet Suri's pages for two examples, and this page on Google Scholar Profiles for more instructions on getting started.

Using social media

X (formerly known as Twitter)—specifically the hashtag #EconTwitter—has become a hub for economists to publicly share announcements including new papers, job openings for research associates (RAs), relocations, etc. In 2024, Bluesky has become an increasingly popular alternative to X for academic researchers, with many economists using the hashtag #EconSky. You can follow prominent development economists, including many J-PAL affiliates on Bluseky using Development Economics Starter Packs (1 and 2). The discussion is often lively and informative. It can feel uncomfortable to self-promote, but creating an X or Bluesky profile, following other economists, posting about your professional achievements (using the #EconTwitter or #EconSky hashtag!), and engaging in discussions/responding to other economists’ posts are other low-cost ways to increase your visibility. 

Learn more about #EconTwitter here and more about #EconSky here. 

Sharing your research code and data (where appropriate)

Sharing de-identified data can increase the reach of your research. Doing so allows others to reuse your data to answer new questions, combine it with other data to draw out insights across studies (as in a meta-analysis or methods research), or to conduct replications of your analysis. 
Beyond benefiting researchers and students who can learn from the data and code, original research data is a citable resource that can be linked to other study materials, including the paper and trial registration. This in turn can benefit you by raising your visibility and enhancing the credibility of your research. Note that data should only be shared if research participants cannot be re-identified and, if not solely owned by the research team, with permission from data owners (such as a data provider).
J-PAL offers free data publication services on any project funded by J-PAL. We also have two two step-by-step guides on 1) removing information that could be used to re-identify research subjects (a must-do before publishing research data), and 2) preparing data for publication, including suggested locations for storing data.

Takeaways

Building your online presence can help other researchers—and influential gatekeepers like conference planners and managers of professional networks—understand your research interests and seek you out for collaboration, and can greatly increase the accessibility of your research and publications. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and unsure of where to start, a good first step is to create a simple personal academic website, CV, and Google Scholar profile; the rest is still useful but less critical in enhancing your visibility as a researcher.