Research Assistant

TERMS OF REFERENCE
Research Assistant – Refugee Research and Policy in the Arab World Program
Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs
Project: Poverty Alleviation and Women Refugees in the Middle East:

Empowerment through Grassroots Micro-Entrepreneurship?

 
Starting date: May 2017
 
 
Four month full-time Research Assistant position within the Refugee Research and Policy in the Arab World Program at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs starting May, 2017.
 
Refugee Research and Policy in the Arab World Program
 
The Refugee Research and Policy in the Arab World Program aims to collect, support and initiate research relevant to refugees – whether Syrian, Palestinian, Iraqi, or others. The program bridges existing knowledge gaps about refugee issues in the Arab world by disseminating the regional experiences of Middle Eastern governments and addressing policy problems within their regional and global context. Thus, the objective of this program is to strengthen research, analysis and information sharing from a local, regional and global perspective, particularly with respect to issues surrounding refugees and internally displaced persons.
This research position will primarily involve work on a project titled “Poverty Alleviation and Women Refugees in the Middle East: Empowerment through Grassroots Micro-Entrepreneurship?” The Research Assistant will be actively involved in research, field work, coordinating events and meetings, as well as other administrative activities under the supervision and support of the Project Coordinator.
 
About the Project: Poverty Alleviation and Women Refugees in the Middle East: Empowerment through Grassroots Micro-Entrepreneurship?
 
Funded by the United Kingdom’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in collaboration with the Department for International Development (DfID), this three-year research project aims at gaining a deeper, richer and more nuanced understanding of the experiences and empowerment of Arab refugee women displaced from Iraq, Palestine and Syria to Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and to understand how they alleviate poverty for themselves, their families and communities through entrepreneurship.
 
Principal Responsibilities:
 

Assist in desktop research and literature reviews related to the project;
Assist with the identification and recruitment of Arab women refugees in Lebanon to be interviewed;
Conduct interviews, in Arabic, with Arab women refugees across Lebanon;
Assist in data entry, including transcription, translation (from Arabic to English), and back-translation (from English to Arabic) of interviews, in a timely manner;
Assist research team in data analysis;
Assist with the organization of meetings, workshops, lectures, and conferences related to the project;
Keep records of all relevant documents (hard and soft copies);
Assist the lead investigator and project coordinator in other relevant tasks, including by providing administrative support when necessary.

 
Qualifications:
 

Master’s degree in social sciences or a relevant field. Candidates with a bachelor’s degree with relevant research experience will also be considered;
1 to 3 years work experience preferable;
Excellent command of English and Arabic is a must (spoken, read and written). Prior research experience in Arabic is a plus;
Good administrative and organizational skills;
Ability to work pro-actively, independently and efficiently;
Easy mobility in all regions across Lebanon;
Experience using NVivo or other qualitative data analysis programs is a plus.

 
Applicants must be Lebanese or eligible to work in Lebanon as per AUB Human Resources policies.
 
Application Procedures:
 
Applicants must send a cover letter, a CV, and the names of two references with full contact information to the project coordinator, Maysa Baroud, at [email protected], no later than April 15, 2017, with the subject, “Research Assistant - Refugee Research and Policy in the Arab World Program”.
 
Kindly note that only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.