Delivery Advisor - Research & Innovation at the International Rescue Committee (IRC)

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, we restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure. The IRC leads the way from harm to home.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Delivery Advisor - Research & Innovation

Requisition: req19780
Location: Abuja, Nigeria (Remote)
Sector: Research & Development
Employment Category: Regular
Employment Type: Full-Time
Open to Expatriates: Not Applicable

Job Description

• The Airbel Impact Lab, the IRC’s research and innovation team, aims to design, test, and scale life-changing, cost-effective solutions with people affected by conflict and disaster. Airbel works to develop breakthrough solutions by combining creativity and rigor, openness and expertise, and a desire to think afresh with the experience of a large-scale implementing organization.
• One of the impacts of COVID-19 is that an unprecedented 1.6 billion students across the world have been out of school; however, 258 million children were already out of school before the pandemic. Half of these children live in crisis-affected countries. And while progress has been made towards achieving universal education over the past twenty years, these “last mile” children remain largely out of reach. In response to this crisis, the Education Global Research & Innovation Priorities (GRIP) at Airbel in coordination with the Education Technical Unit will implement an innovative program in a number of crisis-affected contexts including — Bangladesh, Colombia, and Nigeria — that reaches last-mile children and parents and caregivers, providing them with quality education solutions.

Our approach to reaching these last-mile children with quality education has three areas of focus:

• Meet children where they are both physically and cognitively, with flexible, student-centered learning that they can access in or close to their homes;
• Break down barriers to school entry and support children’s integration into schools once they are ready; and
• Prepare teachers in schools to integrate children with specific needs into their classrooms and equip both teachers and students for future school disruption.

Our strategy has three core pillars:

• Localized innovation - Engagement with local innovators and educators who are well-placed to advance locally-driven solutions with sustainable impact.
• Research & development - Mapping of promising solutions, operational pilots, and rigorous evaluations to drive quality, cost-efficiency, and evidence of effectiveness of our solutions, especially for high-risk students.
• Platform-based approaches - Adopting innovative digital approaches for the last mile to empower students, teachers, and caregivers at scale across multiple contexts.

Job Overview

• The IRC is seeking to hire a full time Delivery Advisor to join and launch projects across our portfolio of the education Global Research & Innovation Priorities (GRIP).
• Our multi-disciplinary teams build, facilitate and contribute on projects that span research and ideation through to prototyping, piloting, evaluation and scaling.
• Our solutions are co-created in partnership with colleagues and partners from the regions where we work.
• You must be comfortable in a fast paced, collaborative and flexible working environment to help to manage the diverse, multi-disciplinary work. Experience of working in cross-functional teams is essential.
• We are looking for a self-motivated, highly organised individual with an eye for detail to support an exciting new education program in Bangladesh, Colombia and Nigeria, scope existing education solutions globally, and manage the delivery of Education GRIP projects.
• The successful candidate will work directly with the Education GRIP Lead and Design & Innovation Product Lead to support delivery of the program. In this role, you will be responsible for managing a number of programme budgets, project/resource management and reporting.

Major Responsibilities

• The Delivery Advisor will be an integral part of the Airbel team and will work collaboratively with the Education Technical Unit (TU) and country teams at various stages of innovation and research.
• Manage delivery across several projects with cross functional, multi-disciplinary teams that include education, technology, design, innovation and research expertise. Ensure that projects are delivered to agreed goals, on time and on budget.
• Work with local innovators, the country team, the Airbel design practice and key stakeholders (remote and/or in person) to plan, facilitate and synthesize design sprints, incubators and accelerators ensuring alignment and synergies across projects.
• Build and maintain a local network of innovation process and education solution partners who can support the development of new products and services. This includes individuals, collectives, implementers, consultancies and startups.
• Overseeing program budgets and ensuring targets are being met within the team.
• Lead on various procurements activities, e.g. Request for Proposals, hiring.
• Actively participate in continuous improvement activities eg. retrospectives delivery team meetings.
• Develop and maintain collaborative and positive relationships with internal and external stakeholders through effective communication and engagement.
• Clear monitoring and reporting (monthly, quarterly and annually) against program level deliverables and KPIs.
• Supporting business development through scoping proposals prior to inception.
• Attending and representing IRC at meetings and events.

Key Working Relationships

• Position Reports to:  Design & Innovation Product Lead
• Position directly supervises:  N/A
• Indirect Reporting: Education GRIP Lead

Other Internal and/or external contacts:

Internal:

• R&I Team Members
• Education Technical Unit Director and Team Members
• Country and Regional Directors and Country Program Staff

External:

• Behavioral science firms, associations, and organizations
• Academic partners
• Key public sector design and innovation schools, institutions, and professional societies
• Private sector design companies

Job Requirements
Work Experience:

• 4-5 years of experience delivering projects and programs ideally in NGO or social enterprise settings.
• Experience of working with cross functional digital teams.
• Experience of delivering projects (ideally technology and innovation ones) end-to-end, on time, on budget and to a high quality.
• Experience of financial management at project and program level.
• Good understanding of, and experience with, project planning software and a range of cloud based technologies (esp Asana, Mavenlink, Hubspot & Excel)
• Enjoys collaborative working, flexible structures and working with a geographically dispersed team.
• Ability to multi-task and move quickly between projects through effective prioritization.
• Organised and with excellent attention to detail.
• Ability to apply a diversity and inclusion lens and approach to work.
• Cares about the mission and goals of the IRC.

Desirable:

• Preferred experience working in education in humanitarian contexts.
• Preferred experience creating or incubating digital solutions.
• Experience of working on projects with a diverse range of non-profit, commercial and entrepreneurial stakeholders.

Language Skills:

• English

Working Environment:

• Mix of remote and in person work. Applicants must have a home or alternate workspace they can effectively complete their work from during regularly scheduled work hours.
• Potential of some travel, coronavirus permitting.

Application Closing Date
Not Specified.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Note

• The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, and Accountability. 
• In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.