Vacancy Title: Senior Research Officer – African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC)

The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) is a leading Africa-based, African-led, international research institution headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. APHRC conducts policy-relevant research on population, health, education, urbanization and related development issues in sub-Saharan Africa.

APHRC seeks to recruit a Senior Research Officer to support the APCC (African Population Cohorts Consortium) project’s program management activities, as well as lead stakeholder engagement and capacity strengthening activities.

Duties/Responsibilities

• Engage stakeholders and lead in the co-creation of governance arrangements;
• Enablement of trans disciplinarily in APCC operations;
• Develop standard operating procedures for research cohorts participating in the APCC;
• Develop guidelines for consistency in data and bio-specimen governance across the APCC (sharing, ownership, commitment to harmonizing);
• Support the development of guidelines dealing with and resolving conflict (dispute/grievance mechanisms with sufficient independence to adjudicate less or more serious issues regarding sharing data);
• Develop guidelines for authorship and publications using APCC materials;
• Provide templates for APCC rational and proposed activities in line with in-country data protection and sharing guidelines;
• Develop guidelines for onboarding and managing country specific principal investigators and data producers;
• Development of guidelines of how unexpected challenges such as epidemics, may influence governance principles and structure;
• Develop communication products e.g. blogs on data governance in an ecosystem with multi-disciplinary datasets;
• Represent the Centre in high- level national and regional forums including relevant technical working groups and expert committees;
• Lead and participate in dissemination of research findings and policy dialogue with appropriate audiences;
• Plan and coordinate the APCC program and its activities including supporting activities of the governance and capacity building cores;
• Ensure implementation of policies and practices as per Wellcome Trust regulations;
• Maintaining budget and tracking expenditures/transactions by working closely with the project grants and financial officers;
• Manage communications on APCC through media relations, social media and the APHRC Policy Engagement and Communication team;
• Schedule and organize meetings/events and maintain agenda for APHRC related activities; and
• Prepare monthly/quarterly project reports.

Qualifications, Skills, and Experience

• At least seven years’ post-master’s degree experience in a research setting.
• Experience conducting field research and managing data collection teams.
• Experience in engaging policy makers and key stakeholders with research evidence.
• Good writing skills and experience in developing standard operating procedures in relevant subject areas.
• Ability to work independently, set priorities, juggle tasks and meet tight deadlines.
• Excellent interpersonal and organizational skills and ability to work in a culturally diverse team.

This position is classified under Nationally Recruited Positions (NRP), Grade III in our scales.