K26348- Senior Research Associate - Market Intelligence (Locally Recruited)

CIMMYT is a cutting-edge, non-profit, international organization dedicated to solving tomorrow’s problems today. It is entrusted with fostering improved quantity, quality, and dependability of production systems and basic cereals such as maize, wheat, triticale, sorghum, millets, and associated crops through applied agricultural science, particularly in the Global South, through building strong partnerships. This combination enhances the livelihood trajectories and resilience of millions of resource-poor farmers, while working towards a more productive, inclusive, and resilient agrifood system within planetary boundaries. CIMMYT is a core CGIAR Research Center, a global research partnership for a food-secure future, dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources.

Key Responsabilities:

1. Portfolio Research Coordination and Workflow Management

• Coordinate assigned market intelligence studies, typically managing day-to-day activities across 2–3 studies at a time, to help ensure delivery against agreed scope, quality standards, budgets and timelines.
• Maintain study workplans, trackers, milestones and deliverable schedules; identify implementation risks or delays and raise issues requiring further direction with relevant staff.
• Coordinate agreed research workflows across questionnaire development, partner engagement and procurement, survey programming, piloting, field implementation and data handover.
• Coordinate between the internal research teams, country teams, procurement colleagues and external research partners for assigned studies.
• Support preparation of implementation plans, budgets, Terms of Reference, scopes of work and partner deliverables, based on agreed study requirements.
• Maintain organized study documentation and ensure key decisions, changes and implementation updates are recorded and communicated to relevant team members.

2. Research Design, Survey Review and Standardization

• Contribute to the design and implementation of quantitative, qualitative and experimental market research studies, selecting and adapting research tools appropriate to different research questions and respondent groups.
• Guide the development and implementation of research approaches including surveys, interviews, focus groups, observational approaches, concept or product testing, experiments and other appropriate market research methods.
• Explore, test and refine new research methods and tools that could strengthen market intelligence research, including appropriate applications of AI-assisted research tools, digital methods, video-based approaches and other emerging techniques.
• Review and standardize questionnaire content across assigned studies, including question wording, response categories, variable naming, coding, identifiers and use of agreed templates, question banks and data dictionaries.
• Check survey instruments for logic, consistency, respondent burden and suitability for analysis, while maintaining version control and documenting changes through review, translation, programming, piloting and field implementation. · Contribute to the use and improvement of research protocols, SOPs and quality-assurance procedures based on lessons from study implementation.

3. Survey Programming, Testing and Data Quality Assurance

• Test programmed surveys prior to deployment, document identified issues and make agreed corrections in consultation with the research team.
• Support user acceptance testing and piloting of digital survey tools, incorporating feedback and ensuring final versions are ready for field implementation.
• Apply agreed survey-programming conventions and templates to promote consistency and reusability across assigned studies.
• Support the preparation and use of routine field-monitoring and data-quality checks to identify missing data, outliers, inconsistencies, unusual interview patterns and other potential quality concerns.
• Review data-quality outputs during field implementation and flag emerging issues to the research lead and relevant research partners.
• Troubleshoot routine survey-programming and data-quality issues with research teams and implementation partners, escalating issues that may affect research design, data integrity or interpretation.

4. Partner Coordination, Procurement Support and Field Implementation

• Act as a day-to-day contact for implementing partners on assigned studies, helping to clarify study protocols, tools, timelines, quality requirements and agreed deliverables.
• Enable partner onboarding and coordination of questionnaire translation, piloting, enumerator and supervisor training, field launch and implementation follow-up.
• Track fieldwork progress against agreed plans and timelines, review routine implementation and data-quality updates, and raise issues requiring further attention with the relevant staff.
• Follow up with partners on agreed actions, timelines and deliverables, and help resolve operational issues during implementation.
• Support review of partner outputs and documentation to confirm that agreed deliverables have been completed to the required standard.

5. Research Systems, Knowledge Management and Continuous Improvement

• Maintain and improve reusable research tools, templates, SOPs, training materials and implementation resources.
• Document lessons and recurring issues from research implementation and identify practical improvements to research tools and workflows.
• Contribute to the development and refinement of quality-control tools for research design, field implementation and data handover.
• Explore and test new tools and methodologies that could improve research quality, efficiency or insight generation, including AI-assisted tools, digital research approaches, video and other emerging methods.
• Support small-scale testing and refinement of promising approaches before their wider application across studies.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in economics, agricultural economics, development studies, marketing, market research, social sciences, statistics, data science or another relevant discipline.
• A bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline combined with appropriate directly relevant research experience may also be considered, in line with organizational policy.

• At least five-seven years of relevant professional experience in applied research, market research, survey research, development research or a related field.
• Experience implementing quantitative, qualitative or experimental research, with demonstrated ability to work across different methodological approaches.
• Practical experience developing research instruments and supporting field implementation using methods such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, observational research, concept testing or experiments.
• Practical experience in questionnaire development, digital survey programming, survey implementation and research quality assurance.
• Experience programming digital surveys using SurveyCTO, ODK, KoboToolbox or comparable platforms.
• Demonstrated willingness and ability to learn and apply new research tools, technologies and methodologies.
• Good understanding of survey logic, validation, variable construction, coding conventions, data dictionaries and data structures used for subsequent analysis.
• Experience experimenting with digital, AI-assisted or other emerging research methods would be an advantage rather than essential.
• Experience working with external research agencies, consultants, field teams or implementation partners, including supporting training, piloting and fieldwork follow-up.

Benefits

This is a Locally Recruited Staff (LRS) position. CIFOR-ICRAF offers a competitive remuneration package commensurate with experience and qualifications. In Kenya, employment contracts are issued under ICRAF in compliance with Kenyan labour law. Locally recruited staff are eligible for a non-contributory pension scheme, comprehensive medical insurance, paid annual and statutory leave, and learning and development opportunities in line with CIFOR-ICRAF policies.

The appointment will be for a period of two (2) years, inclusive of a six-month probationary period, with the possibility of extension contingent upon performance, continued relevance of the position and available resources.

The duty station will be in Nairobi, Kenya.