The Senior Director of Research will lead the organizational vision for conducting research to improve impact and scale across IRC programs and influence the humanitarian sector to uptake research results and findings. They will continue to build organizational capacity and systems for research, drive ambitious research agendas across IRC technical sectors, and lead research teams and projects to answer the most pressing questions to improve humanitarian impact and scale.

Major Responsibilities

Oversee research agendas and manage teams to deliver high quality research.

• Refine and oversee technical research agendas with IRC technical units driving towards improving IRC impact, equity, influence and scale across outcomes.
• Lead high performing research teams to develop research projects and deliver on ambitious workplans to carry out research agendas.
• Oversee workforce planning to deliver the research agendas and proactively identify and fill staffing gaps where needed.
• Cultivate and support passionate team members, creating a space of belonging, professional development, and research excellence across a geographically dispersed team.
• Oversee community of practice for research across IRC countries

Build and support data science team. Strengthen organizational systems to carry out high quality, ethical analysis.

• Support country and regional program teams to streamline and carry out high quality data collection for research priorities.
• Strengthen and continuously improve our research systems, including standards and support for high quality data collection, cleaning, coding, analysis, writing and dissemination, including to participants and communities involved in research.
• Strengthen systems for data storage, cleaning, sharing and analysis, as well as for version control and reproducibility.
• Serve as IRC’s Institutional Review Board Chair. Support teams to maintain high ethical standards in research.

Develop strong partnerships and represent research internally and externally.

• Develop and maintain effective partnerships for research priorities at country, regional and global level that will amplify IRC’s ability to generate evidence and influence targeted policy and practice.
• Present, publish and represent IRC research and innovation at events and meetings to influence key stakeholders.
• Cultivate strong relationships across departments within IRC. Represent the Airbel Impact Lab with senior leaders across the organization.
• Collaborate with Technical Units, Communications and Advocacy on strong research communications to key audiences.

Fundraise and ensure strong financial management of research team

• Raise funds needed to support IRC’s research agenda and research systems
• Oversee budgets and the financial health of research teams, initiatives and projects. Identify and communicate gaps or concerns in a timely manner, and proactively seek out viable solutions.

Job Requirements

Education: Ph.D. in field related to development and humanitarian intervention (e.g., economics, epidemiology, political science)

Work Experience: 10+ years in research, with significant experience in humanitarian or development contexts

Demonstrated Skills And Competencies

• Extensive experience in designing research and managing research teams in low resource environments.
• Fluency in translating the use of empirical evidence to support technical and implementing teams to know what works best to achieve meaningful results for people.
• Demonstrated success in business development for research projects with public and private donors.
• Experience developing and driving research strategy and learning agendas across a large, complex international organization.
• Strong record of publication and authorship/co-authorship of peer-reviewed articles.
• An existing and strong professional network in humanitarian and development research communities.
• Very strong leadership and management competencies including the ability to bring people from divers backgrounds along with a stated vision and strategy, and capacity to communicate effectively with IRC leadership, technical peers, and colleagues in fundraising, communications and advocacy.
• Excellent public speaking and writing skills.

Language Skills: Fluency in English is required; Proficiency in French, Arabic or Spanish is a plus.