Senior Research Associate - Market Intelligence

Role Overview

This role keeps a portfolio of market intelligence studies moving from design through field implementation to data handover, typically running two to three studies in parallel at any given time. You act as the connective tissue between internal research teams, country offices, procurement colleagues and external research partners — translating agreed study requirements into workplans, budgets, instruments, timelines and quality checks that actually hold up in the field. The position matters because credible, comparable market intelligence depends on research that is designed carefully, programmed correctly and executed consistently across very different contexts, and this is the role that makes that consistency possible.

Key Responsibilities

• Run day-to-day coordination for two to three assigned market intelligence studies, maintaining workplans, milestone tracking and deliverable schedules so each study stays within its agreed scope, budget and timeframe, and escalating risks or slippage that need a decision from senior staff.
• Shepherd the full research workflow in sequence — instrument development, partner engagement and contracting, survey programming, piloting, fieldwork and data handover — keeping internal researchers, country teams, procurement staff and external partners aligned at each stage.
• Contribute to study design across quantitative, qualitative and experimental approaches, choosing and adapting methods that fit the research question and respondent group, whether that means surveys, interviews, focus groups, observation, concept or product testing, or field experiments.
• Review and standardise questionnaire content across studies: question wording, response categories, variable names, coding conventions and identifiers, plus use of shared templates, question banks and data dictionaries. Check each instrument for logic, respondent burden and analysability, and keep version control through review, translation, programming, piloting and fieldwork.
• Test programmed surveys before deployment, document defects, apply agreed fixes in consultation with the research team, and support user acceptance testing and pilots until the final version is ready for the field.
• Set up and interpret routine field-monitoring and data-quality checks — missing data, outliers, inconsistencies, unusual interview patterns — flagging emerging concerns to the research lead and partners and troubleshooting routine programming or data issues, while escalating anything that could affect research design or data integrity.
• Act as the day-to-day contact for implementing partners: clarify protocols, tools, timelines and quality expectations; support onboarding, translation, enumerator and supervisor training, field launch and follow-up; chase agreed actions and deliverables; and review partner outputs against the required standard.
• Maintain and strengthen reusable research assets — templates, SOPs, training materials and quality-control tools — document recurring implementation problems and lessons learned, and test promising new methods (including digital, video-based and AI-assisted approaches) at small scale before wider adoption.

Requirements & Qualifications

• Master's degree in economics, agricultural economics, development studies, marketing, market research, social sciences, statistics, data science or a closely related discipline. A bachelor's degree in a relevant field paired with substantial directly relevant research experience may be accepted in line with organisational policy.
• Five to seven years of professional experience in applied research, market research, survey research, development research or a comparable field.
• Demonstrated ability to implement quantitative, qualitative or experimental research, and to move fluidly between methodological approaches rather than specialising in only one.
• Hands-on experience developing research instruments and supporting field implementation using methods such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, observational research, concept testing or experiments.
• Practical background in questionnaire design, digital survey programming, survey implementation and research quality assurance.
• Experience programming digital surveys in SurveyCTO, ODK, KoboToolbox or a comparable platform, with a solid grasp of survey logic, validation rules, variable construction, coding conventions, data dictionaries and the data structures used in downstream analysis.
• Track record of working with external research agencies, consultants, field teams or implementation partners, including supporting training, piloting and fieldwork follow-up.
• Genuine appetite for learning and applying unfamiliar research tools, technologies and methodologies; prior experimentation with digital, AI-assisted or other emerging research methods is a plus rather than a prerequisite.