Job advert: Research Manager
Lead a project to improve our open access digital-era government Syllabus, produce materials to train professors, commission case studies, and organise a series of research seminars.
About us
As a rapidly growing open education nonprofit, Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age is working to build a world in which all public service organizations have essential digital capabilities so that our governments have a better shot at overcoming the urgent challenges facing our societies, and our planet. Crucially, new digital-era skills must be integrated with and inseparable from traditional public service skills. This is the challenge we were founded to meet.
How do we achieve this mission? We operate a teach-the-teacher model - we train the professors who educate students to become public servants. Specifically, we ensure that those who educate current and future public service leaders embed key digital-era skills into University courses and other training programs. Core to our work is a carefully designed, openly licensed digital-era government syllabus and a network of around 50 professors in 25 countries who are using our materials in their classes. To support the network we organize masterclasses, research seminars, and webinars. We recently secured philanthropic funding to enable the organization to professionalize and further scale over the next two years.
About the role
We are looking for a Research Manager who can lead our research workstream, including organizing research colloquia, seeding research collaborations among our participants, commissioning case studies and working with our network to improve our open-access digital-era government syllabus.
We’re a small team and you will be working closely with our Executive Director as well as our four-person Board. We work remotely from Spain, the UK, Canada, France, and Germany and are open to applicants from anywhere, but ideally within four hours of CET.
The role will include:
Producing case studies. Leading a project to research, design and deliver digital-era government open-access teaching case studies with matching lesson plans that enable TPSDA key skills to be taught engagingly in different national contexts and levels of government.
Fostering research collaborations. Delivering a workstream of research workshops, networks and interdisciplinary collaborations that will seed at least 10 new research collaborations and lead to journal-published research articles and other publications related to the content of our syllabus.
Making the syllabus more inclusive. Reviewing our open-access digital era government Syllabus and related materials to ensure that they are sufficiently diverse, including ensuring that they contain materials representing different voices, genders, regions, tiers of government, and approaches to the digital transformation of public administrations.
Updating our syllabus. Working with our network of digital government scholars, researchers, and educators to find high-quality and diverse references, stories, articles, and publications to improve our open-access syllabus.
Experience and skills
Minimum three years of experience leading and coordinating research projects. (essential)
Experience in project management within a research institution, government department, international organization or university. (essential)
Experience producing case studies, articles, and publications. (essential)
Experience organizing research seminars, workshops, and events. (essential)
Good writing and editing skills in English (essential)
Experience in research within the fields of public administration or digital government (desirable)
Network and contacts within the fields of public administration or digital government (desirable)
Knowledge of issues and trends related to digital government (desirable)
What we offer
We’re a small, distributed team that works together online. The role is fully remote and offers significant flexibility. We focus on getting things done, achieving great results, and trusting each other rather than specifying where and how people should work.
The salary is USD $48,000 for an initial 12-month freelance contract. We work 35 hours per week but are open to discussing with you a part-time, pro-rata arrangement. We have an unlimited leave policy based on trust and prior arrangements with colleagues where we expect everyone to take at least 25 days of leave a year.
How to apply
Send a CV, a cover letter explaining your interest in the role, a list of relevant projects you have worked on and two references to apply@teachingpublicservice.digital.
Closing Date: 19 May 2024