Project Coordinator, Science Diplomacy for Research Publishing Reform
10 October 2024
About the project
This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced project coordinator to join our team to support new work to help drive reform in research publishing, so that critical evidence is more accessible to decision makers and users across the world.
The G20 in South Africa in 2025 is a unique opportunity to ensure that research is recognised as a global public good, by elevating the discourse on research publishing reform and ensuring it is recognised as an important global challenge that underpins human progress. By advocating for effective policy change vehicles, championing equitable funding mechanisms, and driving policy harmonisation, the G20 can help to dismantle the barriers to research access created by the current publishing system. South Africa, long a champion of Open Access to research, is well placed to provide the leadership needed and a targeted science diplomacy effort could kick-start fresh action to reform our global systems for publishing research and sharing knowledge.
Building on 30 years of work to strengthen research publishing in the Global South, INASP is pleased to be creating a new project to help accelerate and shape reform of the global research publishing system through more effective science diplomacy. The project will undertake research to understand: the potential of science diplomacy, existing research publishing initiatives in Africa, the impact of barriers to research access on development outcomes, and the political economy of open access for development research funders. Research outputs produced by the project will serve as the foundation for a programme of engagement with key decision makers around the G20 and related international fora.
About INASP
INASP – the International Network for Advancing Science and Policy – is an international organisation, established in 1992, with a mission to support tertiary education and research systems in the Global South. For over 30 years INASP has worked with universities, research organizations, think tanks and governments across Africa, Asia and Latin America to strengthen research, teaching and learning, and to ensure that Global South researchers and educators can produce the knowledge that their countries and communities need.
We work to achieve impact in three areas:
- Enabling researchers to generate critical knowledge for policy, practice and their communities, by supporting early career researchers and their institutions to work with stakeholders to undertake research that addresses priority problems.
- Enabling youth to secure meaningful and dignified work, by working with tertiary institutions and their staff to ensure that degree programmes give graduates the skills, confidence and resilience to thrive.
- Enabling women educators and researchers to lead change, by working with research systems and institutions to ensure curricula and classrooms are inclusive and enable women to succeed in their studies and research.
With a base in Oxford, UK, we are a virtual team which spans 13 countries.
The Role
We are looking for a highly motivated, well-organized, Project Coordinator with good organizational skills, experienced managing budgets and coordinating the work of dispersed teams, experience in Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning and Communications, and excellent interpersonal and communication skills to join the INASP team.
The Project Coordinator will play a key role in INASP’s programme team, to ensure the efficient and effective delivery of the project. This will include supporting the production of a range of written outputs and the organisation of policy engagement events. The postholder will support collaborations with partner organisations and individual consultants. Under the oversight of the Research Lead, they will undertake day-to-day project and financial management and reporting. They will also coordinate project communications and monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) activities. It is anticipated that the role may evolve to provide support to other INASP projects.
The Project Coordinator will be part of a team that includes a Project Director, a Research Lead, a Senior Technical Advisor (INASP’s Executive Director) and other consultant experts. They will report to the Research Lead and Project Manager with a dotted line to the Project Director. They will be part of INASP’s team of around 20 staff and Associates.
Key Responsibilities
- Take day-to-day responsibility for managing the project budget, under the oversight of the Project Manager, and work with the Project Manager and Finance Manager to ensure timely internal financial reporting and external reporting to the funder.
- Manage relationships with consultants and suppliers, ensuring that they have the necessary access to INASP systems, prepare contracts and manage all invoicing and payments.
- Coordinate travel and related logistics for in-person meetings and organise and host digital events and meetings.
- Support the development and maintenance of systems for monitoring, learning and evaluation (MEL), undertake data collection and analysis, and ensure that data is available to other team members as required for project monitoring and reporting.
- Produce communications content, including drafting blogs and social media posts to ensure visibility and external engagement.
- Provide administrative support to the project team.
We are looking for candidates with
- Ability to prioritise work across projects and to manage work on projects with different timelines.
- Ability to foster strong working relationships with partners.
- Excellent project coordination skills, including budget management, administration and data collection.
- Ability to work independently and as part of a team, often without direct supervision.
- A proactive, positive and flexible attitude and approach to work.
- Experience working in and with the Global South, especially in Africa and with African organisations.
Terms
Salary : £32,000-£42,000 (as a UK employee and depending on skills and experience; rates for postholders in other countries will need to fit within approved FCDO rates)
Duration : Fixed Term, 18 months.
Time : Full time
Location : Remote
Please note : INASP is a UK-based organization. For UK residents, this would be a salaried position; for non-UK residents, the post may be in the form of an employment or consultancy contract, depending on the legislation of your country of residence. INASP is unable to sponsor candidates who do not already have the right to live and work in the UK.
Role is contingent upon contract award.
How to apply
Applications should be submitted online.
- A CV of maximum 2 pages.
- A cover letter of no more than 2 pages outlining how you meet the essential and/or desirable criteria in the job description and what you would bring to the role. Please include where you saw the job advert in the cover letter.
Please note: We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if a high volume of applications are received. This is to ensure we can manage application levels whilst maintaining a positive candidate experience. Unfortunately, once a vacancy has closed, we are unable to consider further applications.
Candidates selected for the first set of interviews will be notified and invited to interview. Interviews will take place on the week commencing 21st October online via Zoom / Teams.
INASP is committed to creating an inclusive working environment. We welcome applications from all suitably qualified individuals regardless of their race, gender identity, biological sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age.
Applications from people with disabilities, or those with health problems, are welcome and will be given full consideration. Please inform us of any help or special equipment you might need in order to carry out the duties outlined in the job description, attend for interview, or participate in the recruitment process:
We will not respond to any enquiries from agencies.
Data Protection
We are committed to ensuring that your personal details are protected and that we are fully compliant with our legal obligations under the Data Protection Act and the UK General Data Protection Regulations.
As part of your application to work for INASP you will share some personal information with us, like your name, address, telephone number and email address. We will only use that information to process your application and to monitor recruitment statistics. We will not share it with any third parties without your permission.
Personal information about unsuccessful candidates will be held securely for 6 months after the recruitment exercise has been completed, it will then be destroyed or deleted. We retain de-personalized statistical information about applicants to help inform our recruitment activities, but no individuals are identifiable from that data.
If you are subsequently employed by INASP, we will compile a file relating to your employment. The information contained in it will be kept secure and will only be used for purposes directly relevant to your employment. Once your employment with INASP has ended we will retain your file for 6 years in accordance with our retention schedule and then delete it.
Safeguarding
INASP is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and post holders to share this commitment.
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