Consultancy - Innovation Specialist, Node Engagement, Remote or New York, Office of Innovation, 200 days over 11.5 months (part-time)

Contract

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UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, innovate

UNICEF has a 70-year history of innovating for children. We believe that new approaches, partnerships and technologies that support the realisation of children’s rights are key to improving children’s lives.

Worldwide, we innovate to tackle the most pressing problems faced by the most vulnerable children. We take a systematic approach to innovation, applying skills and energy across new tools and technologies, products, innovative financing and new ways of working to boost our impact.

The Office of Innovation is a creative, unique and agile team in UNICEF. We sit at a unique intersection, where an organisation that works on huge global issues meets the startup thinking, the technology, the tools, the know-how and the partners that turn ideas and energy into scalable solutions for children. We help identify priorities for the application of innovations. We also strengthen the capacity of UNICEF offices to scale proven innovations to millions. Through co-design, shared learning, story-telling and exploration, we also aid efforts to build a culture of innovation throughout UNICEF and beyond.

How can you make a difference?

The Office of Innovation has embarked on a major initiative to reimagine UNICEF’s innovation function and ambition to achieve the SDGs for children. UNICEF Global Innovation Strategy and Framework 2.0 sets the direction and outlines the deliberate choices that align innovation with UNICEF’s strategic goals.

The next step in the operationalization of this strategy is to implement new types of non-financial arrangements dubbed “Innovation Nodes" that will connect/engage UNICEF innovation in entities with a critical gravity of research, development and deep expertise. Nodes are a modality that engaged organizations preeminent in a domain of impact to support innovation for children. These nodes seek to strengthen our collective capability to listen, reflect and create new wisdom, particularly in subjects we are aware of but don’t fully understand, and in illuminating domains where the impact on innovation with and for children is largely unknown. These Nodes will help to reduce blind spots, risks and opportunity costs, and increase impact for children.

Nodes will be explored in areas such as innovation practice (e.g. social innovation, innovation management, frugal innovation), and in domains (including but not limited to biotechnology, life sciences, transdisciplinary research, and certain technologies.) These are trans-disciplinary areas of knowledge distinct from and not duplicative of work in the other Office of Innovation (OOI) business units, and are not connected especially to one particular core team, portfolio, or Hubs .

The Innovation Specialist (Node engagement) will be a wisdom whisperer and provide intellectual and technical guidance on the identification, sourcing, and coordination of Innovation Nodes; coordinate high-quality wisdom artefacts for a diverse audience; design a wide range of public engagement and amplification opportunities from formal to informal publication, engagement events; and harvesting insights and measuring impact and value of the Node modality. S/he will work directly with and under the overall supervision of the Senior Adviser on Innovation (HQ & Nodes.)

Your main responsibilities will be:

1. Provide intellectual and technical expertise and support the identification, sourcing and establishment of Innovation Nodes.
2. Identify and coordinate high-quality wisdom artefacts for a diverse audience; identify opportunities to produce knowledge experiences and products and to position the joint global thought and practice leadership in the innovation impact space.
3. Design a wide range of public engagement and amplification opportunities from formal to informal publication, engagement events; to amplify the value produced from Node engagements.
4. Harvest insights and track & gather learnings, overarching questions, and translate learnings into opportunity areas.
5. Design and support measuring the impact and value of the Node modality.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in political science or other social sciences, science, technology or humanities. A PhD degree is an asset.
• A minimum of seven years of relevant experience in applied research, innovation in the humanitarian and development context, and working with a range of actors, including government agencies, corporations, research institutions, and NGOs.
• Ability to connect and re-combine diverse ideas and knowledge to yield insights that lead to action.
• Highly-developed ability to communicate complex ideas to diverse audience, including extensive experience in producing high-quality knowledge products such as discussion papers, research articles for peer-reviewed journals, blogs, action notes, and policy briefs is essential.
• Well-developed interpersonal and consultative skills and the ability to work collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams.
• Demonstrated project management skills, with an ability to prioritise workloads and deliver on challenging objectives in a timely manner.
• Developing country work experience or/and familiarity with UNICEF programming is considered an asset.
• Fluency in English (written and spoken) is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA) and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

The competencies required for this post are….

• Nurtures, Leads and Manages People (1)
• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (2)
• Works Collaboratively with others (3)
• Builds and Maintains Partnerships (3)
• Innovates and Embraces Change (3)
• Thinks and Acts Strategically (3)
• Drives to achieve impactful results (3)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (3)

Functional Competencies:

• Analyzing (3)
• Deciding and Initiating action (3)
• Applying technical expertise (3)

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

Payment details and further considerations

• Monthly payment, based on monthly tasks and progress reports, approved upon monthly review with supervisor.
• Consultant is responsible for his/her own health and travel insurance
• Consultant is eligible for standard DSA for all work-related travel

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.