Pool of Technical Expert

Pool of Technical Expert & Research Associates

Introduction and Background

Save the Children Indonesia is a thought leader organization who articulates what children say works for them and generates evidence about what works for children in its program implementation and policy influence/advocacy. In its journey to becoming a centre of excellence for children wellbeing, it established the Child-focused Evaluation and Research to Develop Actionable Solution (CERDAS). 

CERDAS is a business unit to commission diverse assessment, research, evaluation to ensure high quality evidence and knowledge available to drive innovation and sustainable impact for children. It services the Save the Children program and organizational need in the Country, Regional, and Global. In the longer-term journey, it aims to provide fee for service to external markets, including government, peer NGO/INGO, and corporate sector. 

CERDAS is functioning through an internal core team members which collaborate with diverse external expertise, named as associates. These associates are including researchers, thematic technical experts, data analytics, etc. CERDAS also keen to work with partners, such as research agencies, universities, and other local counterparts. This unique working arrangement and collaboration optimize accountability, independency, and cost effectiveness as well as uphold the overall evidence generation credibility. 

Save the Children global movement have established and used a world class Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning system, including research capacities, materials, and resources. CERDAS uses this strategic internal organization capabilities by cross-serving research and evaluation activities with country R&E units, Asia Regional Office, the CENTER, and other entities.

Associates Operational Definition 

An associate will act and function as external collaborators of Save the Children Indonesia who will be contracted in annual basis to be mobilized when needed. These pools of experts will be informed regularly about what are in the pipelines to allow them to get ready for assignment. 

Save the Children Indonesia will review the performance of these associates and inform annual contract renewal. The assigned associates will receive a more detail scope of work and deliverables in every assignment and agreed the applied daily fee rate and duration of working days with Save the Children Indonesia.

Scope of Work

General Role and Scope of Work (SOW) for the Pool of Technical Expert and Research Associates 

These pool of technical expert and research associates are expected to have specific technical expertise such as health, education, child protection, climate change, DRR, gender and social inclusion, livelihood, etc. 

They will support the principal investigator (PI) in conducting objective research that generates independent, high quality, and reproducible results. They provide technical support for PI (based on her/his thematic expertise) by performing research activities while ensuring adherence to all applicable regulations and policies and uphold the integrity of the design, conduct, and reporting of the research project. 

The three key scope of working are including: 

• Preparation of Scientific and Robust Evaluation/Research Proposal. Support the PI and research team to prepare TOR, Inception report, Instrument and Protocol and other required documents to obtain ethical clearance from local/international Institutional Review Board (IRB). Duties may include participation in design, execution, and management of research activities. 
• Implementation of Research/Evaluation Plan. Conducting desktop research, and using books, journal articles, newspaper sources, questionnaires, surveys, polls, and interviews to gather data. Promotes the ethical conduct of research by reporting good faith suspicions of misconduct, child safe-guarding, and children and youth engagement. Ensures rights and welfare of human research participants through data security of consents and other protected records, anticipating research issues and promptly resolving them, promptly reporting any problems to the relevant stakeholders, and following a strict code of ethics and always protecting any confidential information. 
• Reporting and Submission All Deliverables. Contribute to the data analysis and interpretation and report writing in accordance with Save the Children writing guidelines and procedures. Takes appropriate steps to avoid conflicts of interest, or the appearance of conflicts of interest, between financial or other personal interests and the purpose and objectives of the research/evaluation activities. Support the team to disseminate the findings from research or evaluation to ensure optimal influence and impact for relevant stakeholders. This could be including developing fact sheet, slide deck, policy brief, and other publication forms.

Qualifications and Experience

• Master's degree, preferably in the social sciences, public health or a related field (such as international development, program evaluation, research methods, or statistics)
• Minimum 6 years of research experience, significant experience in leading, planning, designing and leading on quantitative and qualitative research, participatory action research and/or monitoring and evaluation in research institution, university, or NGO, government, with preference for prior experience on at-scale and/or multi-sectoral program evaluations or research in Indonesia.
• Experiences working with high level government agencies, civil societies, NGOs and academics on issues related to one of Save the children technical areas (health, education child protection, child poverty and child rights) is desirable
• Masterful analytical skills, including the ability to distil useful findings from a body of data, relating findings to external factors and context, and unearthing patterns of findings, discerning which are useful.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills including proven success in ability to present ideas and concepts effectively and persuasively
• Demonstrated expertise communicating with and managing relationships with external research vendors. Excellent project management skills including demonstrated ability to set and manage priorities and multiple tasks, an outcome, deadlines, quality-oriented person.