Research Assistant – Under Partnership with Basic Health Services (BHS)

IMU is a research-intensive institution. The benefits of being an RA in IIMU are:

• A chance to attend regular workshops where research papers are presented and discussed.
• Attend PhD level coursework offered in the institute.
• Salaries are competitive with similar positions in India.
• Recommendation letters as well as guidance on the application process to top PhD programs by the IIMU faculty you work with and from co-founders of BHS.
• Encouragement to initiate your own research.

IIMU’s RAs have received offers from world class PhD programs including Texas A&M University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Texas at Austin, Western University (Canada), University of Maryland, London School of Economics, University of Houston, University of Memphis, Kansas State, among others.

You should consider yourself a good fit for this position if you are seriously considering pursuing a PhD/ research career in public health/ health management domain, and want to get some experience to see if a research oriented approach is meant for you. You will assist the faculty in research projects on healthcare and healthcare management. You should be self-motivated to take ownership of and lead research projects.

This is a research position in an academic cum field setting. The responsibilities include:

• Data collection, data preparation, and data analysis - mainly working on primary data using qualitative methods including in-depth interviews and FGDs.
• Literature search, summary, presentation, and writing
• Writing research proposal and conducting research
• Initial phase of the research will require significant efforts in field to understand the community demographics and behaviour. Visiting intervention sites, and understanding the healthcare seeking pattern of the community will be key tasks.

Only the applicants who are shortlisted for interview will be informed within seven days after submitting their application. If you do not hear from us within seven days after submitting your application, then you have not been shortlisted for the interview.

Highly motivated candidates with a bachelor’s degree from any of the top-tier colleges in the country with an understanding of qualitative research and interest in public health domain (to pursue Masters/ PhD in public health or allied areas). Candidates with master’s degree in Public Health/ Health Administration/Social work/ Sociology/ Anthropology with interest in PhD in public health or allied areas or wanting to do impactful work in healthcare field can also apply.

• An open mind to learning new concepts, creativity and hard work
• Good English writing skills
• Good knowledge of Hindi. Knowledge of Wagdi (Vaghri) would be a plus
• Good understanding of the Healthcare space
• Good understanding of research processes
• Qualitative data collection, coding, and analysis skills. Exposure to working on NVivo, QDA Miner will be a plus.

The candidate must have high standards in terms of quality of work, attention to detail, ability to multi-task and absolute commitment to task completion.

The position is contractual for 11 months and will be renewed for a further period of 11 months (if performance is deemed satisfactory), enabling the candidate to build up their profile for PhD applications. Candidates are expected to move on into a Master’s/ PhD at the end of two years.

Please note that this position will be part field based (mostly in Dungarpur district of Rajasthan) and part based out of Udaipur (offices of BHS or IIMU campus). We expect the split to be 60% field based and 40% in the office/ campus. Work from home is not an option.

Interested candidates can apply online

The position will remain open and will accept applications till a suitable candidate is found.

• Please upload latest CV.
• Please also upload a statement of purpose not exceeding 1 page in length (single-spaced) on your motivation for taking up the RA position. Please cover the following points in your statement of purpose-
  • Why are you motivated to take up the RA role?
  • What are your career plans?
  • How does the RA role fit into your career plans?
  • Why you think you will be a good RA?
  
  

We will contact you within 2 weeks of your submission of application in case we decide to interview you. In case you do not hear from us within 2 weeks of your submission of application, you have not been shortlisted for this position.