Research Fellow: Humanitarian Systems Change

1. Consultancy in brief

The Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP) is a system-wide network organisation dedicated to improving the accountability and performance of humanitarian action by strengthening the humanitarian evidence base through sharing lessons, identifying key issues and, where appropriate, providing leadership to find collective approaches and solutions. ALNAP is hosted by ODI in London. For more details on ALNAP please visit: www.alnap.org. The function of this role is to deliver strong internal research capacity for ALNAP to carry out a combination of primary research and secondary evidence synthesis on a range of themes relevant to the learning needs of humanitarian policy makers and practitioners, with a particular emphasis on supporting system change within the humanitarian sector. The contract will initially be for 1 year between 2024 – 2025.

2. Aim and Scope

While there is scope for this role to work or lead on a wide range of research projects, we anticipate the role will initially focus on the following three projects:

Locally led action & humanitarian performance: Supporting locally led humanitarian action has become a priority for many in the international humanitarian sector. For some, this shift is driven by an ethical imperative: for others it is a practical reality, particularly in the context of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Whilst significant attention and literature have been generated since the build-up to the World Humanitarian Summit, there is surprisingly little evidence on the relationship between locally led humanitarian action and performance at a response level. After an in-depth scoping phase in 2023, ALNAP has identified three main areas of work for a learning agenda on locally led action: 1) generating new evidence of the impact of different models of local leadership on the quality, efficiency, relevance and effectiveness of humanitarian action; 2) highlighting and sharing learning from the experiences of survivor and community led response; 3) exploring the disincentives for change that have blocked progress on the locally led agenda and how these can be addressed more explicitly. This project will be done primarily in partnership with other organisations and this role will act as a content lead alongside an ALNAP research and partnerships coordinator to deliver a high impact portfolio of work.

Evidence and Learning Synthesis for improved humanitarian policy and practice: ALNAP is seeking to expand its previous work on evidence and learning synthesis, recognising that for many humanitarian decision makers, the primary learning challenge is accessing and learning from existing research rather than requiring new research to be produced. The successful candidate will be expected to deliver between 1 – 3 evidence and learning syntheses on relevant policy themes per year. These themes will be identified on a rolling basis, and we expect the successful candidate to play a leading role in identifying relevant and timely topics. Indicative topics include: climate change & humanitarian action; the impacts of AI for humanitarian organisations; HDP nexus implementation; effective protection policy and programming.

Support to State of the Humanitarian System report: This role will also support data collection, consultant management and analysis for the 2026 State of the Humanitarian System report. It is envisioned that time spent on the SOHS project will likely be light in the first year of this posting, and become more substantial in 2025. Tasks will include ad hoc desk based review and interviews to support the SOHS research lead and management of consultants, review of consultant analysis and output, and working with a statistician on the original analysis of some primary survey data.

This role will also have a networking function, as ALNAP’s research relies heavily on inputs and direction from ALNAP members.

Deliverables:

Research:

• Design and undertake a mixture of research and external engagement activities to deliver high-impact, practice-and policy-facing research and learning outputs

• Supporting research project activities or leading parts of research projects including field work, methodology development, holding workshops, producing written outputs and preparing reports for donors, under the supervision of a Research Fellow or the Head of Research and Impact.

• Undertake travel overseas for research related purposes.

• Facilitate collaborations with ALNAP Network Members for action-research activities and peer learning exchanges.

• Authoring or co-authoring research reports, guidance documents and other documents for publication.

Policy advice, public affairs and dissemination:

• Identify and cultivate strong relationships with key stakeholders and policy audiences in the humanitarian sector to see uptake of research and learning findings

• Provide support to ALNAP Member organisations on relevant issues related to humanitarian policy and practice, particularly locally led humanitarian action

• Identifying creative pathways and activities for research dissemination, uptake and use

• Organising meetings series and (multi-)media outputs from research projects

• Supporting the design and content delivery of ALNAP Annual Meetings

• Working with ALNAP colleagues to represent ideas, knowledge and ALNAP concerns in a variety of fora

• Liaison and networking with a wide range of agencies including attending meetings on behalf of ALNAP and providing short meeting summaries for distribution within the team and more widely

Project Management:

• Under the overall direction of the Head of Research and Impact, liaising with and reporting to donors, managing budgets and consultants and the inputs of other project partners;

• Supervising interns and other short-term staff working within the team

Collegiate life:

Contribute to the Institute’s collegiate life through:

• Such ALNAP and ODI activities as discussion groups, lunchtime meetings, staff meetings, working groups, interviews, external representation.

• Intellectual exchanges with other research team members.

• To undertake specific duties as requested by the ALNAP Head of Research & Impact and Director.

Your profile

You will be passionate about the potential for research and learning to change people and institutions and have direct experience in making this happen in previous roles. The successful individual will be expected to be familiar and comfortable with mixed methods research and the selection and design of research methods to fit a learning objective. They will combine the strengths of a strong grasp of research techniques and approaches with the mindset and skillset of a communicator who is able to link research findings to practical policy recommendations or actions. You are comfortable with managing consultants or working with partners to deliver research findings as well as with undertaking research directly. You find the opportunity of working in a remote Secretariat team for a global network to be exciting, as you like connecting and working across a range of organisations and backgrounds.

Essential Knowledge and Qualifications

• A degree and post-graduate degree in relevant discipline or equivalent relevant experience in the sector

• Active knowledge of key international institutions in the humanitarian sector and beyond

• Familiarity with ALNAP

• Active knowledge of key issues related to research and evidence in the humanitarian aid sector, particularly locally led humanitarian action

• A keen interest in change or reform processes and the frameworks and theories supporting these

Experience

• Demonstrated experience in leading and delivering medium-to large-size research projects and/or research-informed change processes

• Direct experience working or living in a crisis affected country

• Significant experience in an practice/policy facing research environment relevant to the humanitarian aid sector, i.e. policy-oriented research and guidance development, demonstrated by publications and reports Skills/Abilities

• Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to negotiate successfully with a wide range of people and cultural awareness

• Excellent analytical and writing skills

• Strong presentation and networking skills

• Flexible and able to work iteratively

• Excellent IT skills (Word, Excel, Powerpoint)

• Ability to work in a team

• Willingness and ability to travel internationally on a frequent basis, which may include overnight and weekends on occasion.

• Ability to work on own initiative and under minimal supervision, to accept responsibility and to respond with confidence to complex and evolving problems

Desirable

• Fluency in a language other than English and competency in others

• Experience in information management and organisational learning

• Quantitative data analysis skills or experience

• Knowledge of qualitative data storage packages

For more information visit – Research Fellow: Humanitarian Systems Change | ALNAP