Scientist -Gender Responsive Digital Transformation

Research Scientist - Gender and Digital Inclusion

Key Responsibilities

This position requires a proactive, collaborative, and impact-driven individual with the skills to advance ILRI’s digital transformation agenda with a gender lens and contribute to the overarching goal of leveraging digital innovations for resilience-building for communities in Asia and Africa.

Research Leadership

• Lead ILRI’s contributions to the CGIAR Center of Excellence on Gender and Digital Inclusion under the Digital Transformation Accelerator (DTA), including agenda setting, research design, evidence generation, and partner coordination.
• Design and implement research on inclusive digital innovation including user design principles, gender-responsive / transformative technologies, and responsible AI use to support the development of equitable and resilient agriculture and livestock livelihood systems across Africa and Asia.
• Develop and apply frameworks, metrics, and benchmarking tools to assess digital inclusion, scalability, gender equity, adoption, and impacts of digital innovations.
• Contribute to the CGIAR Gender Equality and Inclusion Accelerator through research, evidence synthesis, and policy-relevant analysis.
• Support bilateral and strategic initiatives (e.g., AICCRA-FSRP Phase 4, Monsoon Mission III, CIS4Y, MCF) related to AI-enabled advisory systems, digital climate services, and inclusive information systems.

Partnerships and Engagement

• Build and manage strategic partnerships with CGIAR Centers, universities, governments, donors, private sector actors, and civil society organizations.
• Convene stakeholder dialogues, technical workshops, learning events, and capacity-strengthening initiatives at global, regional, and national levels.
• Collaborate with communications teams to translate research into accessible knowledge products, campaigns, and influence strategies.
• Represent ILRI and CGIAR in relevant global and regional platforms on digital inclusion, gender equality, and responsible innovation.

Delivery and Management

• Manage project plans, milestones, budgets, deliverables, and reporting requirements across multiple grants and workstreams.
• Lead or contribute to peer-reviewed publications, technical reports, policy briefs, toolkits, and donor reports.
• Ensure quality assurance, ethical compliance, monitoring, learning, and documentation of project outcomes.
• Support proposal development, fundraising, and strategic positioning for new opportunities in digital transformation and gender research.

Requirements

• PhD in Rural Sociology, Gender Studies, Anthropology, Feminist Economics, Development Economics, Agricultural Economics, Geography, or related fields with 3–5 years of professional experience, including a minimum of 4 years of postdoctoral experience in gender research, digital inclusion, agricultural innovation systems, or related areas.
• Strong grounding in gender theory and social equity frameworks, with demonstrated experience applying these in the Global South.
• Demonstrated experience leading or contributing to research on digital inclusion, gender-responsive innovation, digital advisory systems, or responsible AI in agriculture or development contexts.
• Strong experience in mixed-methods research design, including quantitative, qualitative, participatory, and interdisciplinary approaches.
• Proven publication record in peer-reviewed journals and production of high-quality technical, policy, and donor-facing outputs.
• Experience working with multi-stakeholder partnerships involving research institutions, governments, NGOs, private sector actors, and international development agencies.
• Track record in managing research-for-development (R4D) projects, including planning, implementation, budgeting, monitoring, and reporting.
• Demonstrated experience influencing policy, strategy, or practice through evidence generation, stakeholder engagement, and knowledge brokering.
• Strong communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills, with experience working in multicultural and multidisciplinary teams.
• Experience working in Africa and Asia on agriculture, livestock, climate resilience, gender equality, or digital development programs.

Terms of Appointment

This position is at job level HG18, and it is open to both national and international applicants. The position is a three (3) year contract, renewable subject to satisfactory performance and availability of funding. ILRI offers a competitive international salary and benefits package which includes pension, medical insurance, life insurance and allowances for: education, housing, security, relocation, and home leave.

End Date: 12th July 2026