Position: Research Assistant/ Officer

Organization: The George Institute

Location: Delhi

 
Our strategy focuses on three key research priorities:
 
Better Treatments: finding better treatments for the world’s biggest health problems
Better Care: transforming primary health care to support better health for more people
Healthier Societies: harnessing the power of communities, governments and markets to improve health

Our innovative commercial enterprises help maximise our impact. 
 
Here is a sample of the things we are doing to achieve our goal of having the greatest possible impact on global health:

• We are identifying better and safer treatments for our biggest killers like stroke, heart disease and high blood pressure;
• In many countries, our award winning FoodSwitch smartphone app is helping people make healthy food choices when shopping;
• In China, we ran a successful education and awareness program to reduce the amount of salt eaten by people by 25% each day
• In rural India, we have shown that mobile technology can help diagnose mental health, as well as help treat cardiovascular disease, and we’re looking at similar approaches to treating chronic diseases in Indonesia and China;
• Together with Aboriginal communities in NSW, Australia, we developed an innovative community led program to assist young Aboriginal drivers attain their license, now implemented in a dozen of locations;
• We are developing an affordable dialysis machine, with potential to save millions of lives each year and transform the way kidney disease is treated globally. 

Context and Role:
 

• The Injury Division within the George Institute, India is engaged in research on the domain of Injury and health systems response to injury. The major work area for injury division are; burn injury, drowning prevention, road traffic accidents, fall, and snakebite. The division is also involved in cross-cutting health systems and policy research with direct or indirect linkage with injury prevention, care, or improving recovery outcomes after injury. In addition to research, the injury division works closely with various stakeholders, both at the national and international level for ensuring knowledge to action translation. 
• We are looking for an early career researcher in the role of Research Assistant / Officer for the Injury Division to support the ongoing project on burns and other focus areas.

Reporting Relationships
 
This position directly reports to Senior Research Fellow – Injury Division and performs her/his duty under his/her guidance. As part of the Injury Division, She/he may have to work with other team members.
The RA is also envisaged to lead and manage a team of field-level data collectors and liasoning with external project implementing institutes as and when required.

Duties and Key Responsibilities:
 
The Research Assistant/Officer would be expected to perform:
 
Research study:

• Support in preparing study-related plans and documents. 
• Support in preparing project reports. 
• Support in organising literature and references, developing the presentation. 
• Support in quantitative and qualitative data analysis.

Research Project Management:

• As part of a project, a prospective Burn Registry is ongoing in five identified sites in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, RA is responsible for supporting the research team on all aspects of project activities:

Project data monitoring:

• To review data from each site, prepare the status report and share feedback with study sites. 

Supporting project documentation:

• Supporting the development of the monthly report and, preparing supporting documentation and presentation. 

Follow-up survey:

• Supporting in generating site-wise participants list on weekly basis.

Support in ongoing analysis of data:

• Extracting data and running analytic syntax in statistical software to assess the data quality issues. 

Support in qualitative/health systems research:

• Supporting in transcribing the interview transcripts 
• Supporting in synthesizing published/grey literature.

Learning and Development Opportunities:

• Learning project documentation, scientific writing. 
• Learning basics of qualitative analysis, health policy analysis, and systems research. 
• Literature search and synthesis. 
• Opportunity to co-author research papers. 

 The Research Assistant/Officer should also:
 
As a Team Member:

• Participate in team meetings and activities relating to the project and own work area;
• Participate in special projects to improve processes, tools, systems and organisation;
• Take responsibility for personal learning and development and for setting achievable and meaningful work objectives and managing personal targets, meeting obligations of the Institute’s Performance Management and Development Policy;
• Demonstrate commitment to GI’s values, including performing to an exceptionally high ethical standard and focus on integrity, collaboration and teamwork in all efforts.

As a Team Manager:

• Ensure direct reports understand and comply with GI’s Policies and procedures, standard operating practices, ethical practice (with respect to research) and the legislative environment.
• Be responsible for managing performance of direct reports, including the completion of plans and agreeing on work and personal objectives and reviewing such plans and objectives, in accordance with GI’s Performance Management and Development Policy.
• Act as a role model and ensure the team’s commitment to GI’s values, ensuring direct reports perform to a high ethical standard and focus on integrity, collaboration and teamwork in all efforts.

Work, Health and Safety

• Comply with GI’s Work Health and Safety Policy and related procedures, and similar policies which apply when visiting the premises of affiliates and collaborating sites.
• Promote and contribute to a safe, secure environment for staff and visitors.
• Ensure direct reports understand and comply with safe work practice and procedures.

Skills, Knowledge and Experience
 

• We are looking for a motivated early career/ emerging researcher with a keen interest in developing research skills and reseasrch project management capacity.
• The person should be a graduate in a medical or allied field with a Master’s in Public Health/Health Management/Administration or other related fields. Prior experience of working in a primary research project, managing the operation of a research project, data analysis, and report writing is desirable. 

 Education qualification:

• Graduate in medicine or related field with Master’s or equivalent in Public Health/Health Management/Administration.

Experience: 

• 1-2 years of experience in a research project, public health project or public health practice. 
• Prior experience of working in a primary research project, managing the operation of a research project, data analysis, and writing report is desirable. 
• Strong motivation to learn public health research. 
• Demonstrated capability to produce outcomes and achieve objectives within agreed time periods; 
• Strong problem solving, analytical skills, and proven strategic thinking;
• Excellent interpersonal skills with high level of proficiency in English and the ability to work well autonomously;
• Ability to demonstrate flexibility and to be adaptable to changing organisational priorities and ambiguous environments;
• Strong focus on producing the highest quality of work and on ensuring optimum accuracy of outputs;
• Well organised and efficient, with the capacity to work under pressure