RESEARCH ASSOCIATE

About the position

The Research Associate has the responsibility to support Food Environment and Agri-nutrition research activities in the Food Environment and Consumer Behaviour lever at regional, national, and county levels. The tasks include supporting multi-stakeholder processes; conducting consumer and food environment studies, organizing, coordinating, and supervising field data collection activities, and supporting data analysis in close collaboration with teams of experts, donors, national and county government partners, and other in-country stakeholders.

Responsibilities

Support research on food environment, including reviewing and compiling innovative approaches to assess food environments.

Support multi-stakeholder engagement to co-create innovations and/or policies for sustainable healthy diets.

Support the implementation of project activities and innovations.

Provide support on networking and engagements with key partners.

Support the development of survey tools for qualitative and quantitative data collection, including programming in KOBO or any other open-access tool.

Supervise quantitative and qualitative field survey data collection.

Data management and analysis using appropriate software (e.g. SPSS, QDAMiner lite)

Contribute to writing project proposals, reports, discussion papers, scientific manuscripts, policy briefs, blogs, and other communication materials related to the project work.

Requirements

The candidate shall have the following competencies, skills and experience:

Bachelor degree preferably in applied human nutrition, agricultural sciences, or any other relevant field, with a proven interest in food systems, sustainable diets, and Agri-nutrition.

At least 2 years experience working in food systems and agri-nutrition-related activities.

Experience in stakeholder engagement, workshop organization, and implementation.

Excellent Microsoft Office skills, including Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

Excellent communication skills in English, both verbal and written including the ability to organize and write clear and concise reports;

Interest in and proven editing and proofreading skills.

Experience in designing survey tools.

Experience in writing scientific articles will be an added advantage.

Possess excellent analytical skills, respect for confidentiality, and a high level of integrity.

Must be able to work independently with minimal supervision, but also participate as a team member in the accomplishment of duties.

Well organized, with the ability to manage multiple and simultaneous ongoing activities.

Ability to support workshop facilitation and execution.

Ability to engage varied stakeholders at different levels.

Strong ability to coordinate, prioritize and organize workload; take initiative and work under pressure.

Ability to travel and work in a multi-cultural environment.

Commitment to the Alliance mission and core values.