The Senior Director of Research, Evaluation, and Learning is the lead strategist and point person for the Department of Education and Child Protection’s (DECP) research efforts in humanitarian and development settings. This position manages the research team (10 employees), and supports the other four units in DECP—Early Childhood Education (ECD), Basic Education (BE), Child Protection (CP), and School Health and Nutrition (SHN)—in research and evaluation efforts to build the evidence base for program impact at scale. Incumbent and team will expand Save the Children’s global understanding of education and child protection trends, and contribute to improving evaluation, documentation, credibility, and dissemination of Save the Children’s program results and policy initiatives. Incumbent also oversees the Save the Children University Partnerships for Education Research (SUPER), strategic partnerships with academic partners, and leads the presentation and publication of research findings from DECP to internal and external audiences. Incumbent defines, pursues, and raises funds for testing and evaluating the impact of Save the Children’s programming approaches on child, parent, and system outcomes, ensuring consistency and rigor across sites and advocating for the same in global measurement and evaluation dialogues.
The Senior Director reports to the Associate Vice President of DECP. Incumbent works in close collaboration with other Senior Directors in the department and across the International Programs Division at SCUS as well as Program Quality and Impact colleagues at the SCI global center and across the movement.
Technical Leadership and Innovation (35%)
- Ensure technical quality of outcome measurement and evaluations in Save the Children (SC) education and child protection sites in development and humanitarian contexts
- Lead the development and management of the Save the Children US (SCUS) education and child protection learning agenda, ensuring alignment with global efforts, like the common approaches, within and beyond Save the Children
- Provide oversight, vision, and leadership to the evolution of the assessments for literacy, numeracy, and social emotional learning as well as their combinations in the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA), the Holistic Assessment of Learning and Development Outcomes (HALDO), and other early childhood, youth learning, and livelihood tools.
- Build strategy, momentum and resources for strengthening the skills and knowledge among country team colleagues and in the broader organization to measure learning and development and utilize findings in program continuous improvement cycles
External Partnerships and Collaboration (20%)
- Cultivate strategic external partnerships with academic institutions, multilateral organizations, implementing partners, and donors to leverage learning and position SC as a thought leader in the education sector
- Lead external partner engagement by identifying strategic opportunities for partnership and facilitating complementary contributions to research and programming from partners
- Link university researchers with SC country office and partner education programs, focusing the input of the SUPER network to assessing learning outcomes and liaising with strategic partners on measurement as well as external evaluations
Knowledge Management and Dissemination (20%)
- Contribute to global dialogue on assessment of learning outcomes, building SC’s reputation as a strong NGO voice with rigorous results in this arena
- Provide technical oversight to the preparation and dissemination of research results within SC and externally through reports, conferences, journal articles, and other technical fora.
- Lead the research team in conducting cross-country studies to inform DECP’s program advances and advocacy messages
- Work with colleagues to across business teams and departments to synthesize research findings and consistently link programmatic supports, technical messages, advocacy goals, and resource development for DECP programming
- Provide technical oversight to advances in work related to the IDELA website and strategy for additional global public goods
Professional Management (15%)
- Lead the DECP research team
- Support research team member capacity development to generate and use data for program improvement
- Mentor research team members build skills around rigorous quantitative and qualitative research approaches
Public and Private Resources (10%)
- Provide technical oversight to the research and evaluation components of proposal development for the US government and private foundations/donors
- Fundraise and support research priorities and field testing of innovative programs in humanitarian and development settings
- Minimum of 10 years of experience in education development-related work in international settings
- 7-10 years of experience with applied research, preferably in a development and/or emergency setting, ideally utilizing rigorous quantitative and qualitative research approaches
- Experience supporting/mentoring junior researchers and managing a research team
- Proven technical knowledge in design, analysis, and communication of qualitative and quantitative research
- Proven track record of publishing articles in research journals and participating in other technical fora (e.g.: conferences)
- Experience working on MEL elements of USG proposals and projects
- Experience developing and managing research and learning strategy/agenda for an organization or a large, multi-sectoral program
- Experience embedding research findings into program continuous improvement cycles, advocacy agenda, and fundraising initiatives
- Ability to travel up to 15% domestically and internationally
Preferred Qualifications
- Master’s in education, international development, or related field strongly preferred
- Excellent knowledge of the development education sector
- Advanced knowledge of STATA, R, or similar statistical program
- Advanced knowledge of Atlas.ti, NVivo, or similar qualitative research software
- Aetna Medical and Dental insurance with a concierge service
- Health Care and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account
- Vision Insurance
- Life insurance
- Employee Assistance Program
- Commuter Benefit Program
- Vacation and Sick leave
- Paid holidays
What makes us special!
- Generous Retirement Savings with matching company contributions of up to 8%
- Family Leave – 10 additional days of paid time off for you to use to care for your family members
- Additional Maternity and Paternity Leave – 30 days where parents can take additional paid leave (beyond short-term disability and FMLA) at the birth or adoption of a child during that critical first year!
- Critical Child Illness Leave – We hope you never have to use it, but we will provide an additional 30 days of paid leave per year should your dependent child be faced with a critical illness.
- Pet Insurance, Critical Illness Insurance, Identity Protection, Home, Auto and additional Life insurances
- Summer Fun Fridays – During the summer months, early release at 1:30 pm every other Friday!
- Volunteer Day – One paid day a year to support the causes that matter to you!
- Ergonomic Options – Every employee at our HQ offices has the option of a sitting/standing desk
- Leadership and Employee Development Training, including:
- Our remarkable in-house CORE, Senior Management Development, and Leadership Development Programs
- Language learning opportunities
- Continuous Improvement skill development programs
- Brown Bag information sharing sessions
- Work hard/Play hard! We make sure there’s ample opportunity for fun, engagement, and celebration while you work, such as networking events, March Madness, World Cup, Dodgeball Tournaments, Take Your Child to Work Day, Founder’s Day, and our annual Day of Service