Consultancy: Innovation Specialist, Integration and Nodes Implementation, Office of Innovation, NY, USA (200 days over 12-month period)

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 realizing children’s rights are critical to improving their lives.

The Office of Innovation is a creative, interactive, and agile team in UNICEF. We sit at a unique intersection, where an organization that works on huge global issues meets the start-up thinking, the technology, and the partners that turn this energy into scalable solutions.

UNICEF’s Office of Innovation creates opportunities for the world’s children by focusing on where new markets can meet their vital needs. We do this by:

• Connecting youth communities (or more broadly — anyone disconnected or under-served) to decision-makers, and to each other, to deliver informed, relevant, and sustained programmes that build better, stronger futures for children.
• Provoking change for children through an entrepreneurial approach — in a traditionally risk averse field — to harness rapidly moving innovations and apply them to serve the needs of all children.
• Creating new models of partnership that leverage core business values across the public, private and academic sectors to deliver fast, and lasting results for children.

How can you make a difference?

Innovation is one of UNICEF’s change strategies with the purpose of accelerating the achievement of child-related SDGs and beyond 2030. 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 Office of Innovation (OOI) is accountable for implementing the strategy.

This strategy explicitly recognizes the role of an ideation phase, which is characterized by discovery, exploration and engaging with the research and development process and you can be part of the team that realizes this:

“Ideation Insights from this phase of the process will identify gaps and opportunities and expose unproven approaches and technologies to be explored. Potential solutions will be co-created or discovered through scanning the horizon for new and existing ideas. Research and development will be undertaken to meet clearly defined requirements and gain an understanding of current and future demand.”

Innovation Nodes have been established in UNICEF’s Office of Innovation to engage with and learn from cutting edge research, ideas, and networks. These are new types of collaborative arrangements that connect/embed UNICEF in locations with a critical gravity of research, development and deep expertise in key new and emerging technologies and other critical areas of knowledge. Node collaborations are with pioneering pre-eminent organizations with deep expertise and transdisciplinary capabilities and intentionally empower young researchers.

Innovation Nodes are collaborative spaces that illuminate, probe, reflect and generate novel ideas and research in new and unknown areas of potential innovation for children. Examples of current work include second- and third-generation renewable energy, precision health, applied biotechnology such as in diagnostics, additive manufacturing, next-generation materials, emerging business models for innovation for sustainable development.

The Innovation Specialist will work directly with and under the overall supervision of the Senior Adviser on Innovation (HQ & Nodes). They will work in an environment that requires adaptability, flexibility, and the ability to creatively respond to rapidly changing innovation landscapes.

Your main responsibilities will be:

S/he will engage with pioneering research institutions with the aim to explore, synthesize and disseminate cutting-edge research in new areas of innovation with potential impact for children and young people at scale. Working under the supervision of the Senior Adviser on Innovation (HQ & Nodes) you will:

For mor details please see attached Terms of Reference (TOR).   TOR Nodes Consultant 22Mar2024.pdf

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

• An advanced university degree — PhD is preferred due to the level of collaborators and research experience that this role requires — in social sciences, sciences, international development, innovation, business or another relevant field.
• A minimum of 8 years of relevant professional experience that includes direct experience working in development or humanitarian role(s) in a developing country context, as well as research experience in either academia, think tanks or private sector lab.
• Proven publication record that demonstrates in-depth research, rigorous analysis, recognized excellence in the field. Publications can be from professional or academic journals, edited volumes, single-authored books, and/or policy-oriented publications.
• Understanding of humanitarian and development innovation and programming within the UNICEF context.
• High level of fluency in English required in particular demonstrated expertise in research translation and science communication in English in a variety of formats is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

 Travel:

• No travel is planned for this consultancy.
• Should travel become necessary during this consultancy, this contract will be amended, and the consultant would be responsible to arrange his/her own travel, including visa and travel insurance.

Payment details and further considerations:

Payment of professional fees will be based on the submission of agreed deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant. For mor details please see attached Terms of Reference (TOR).  TOR Nodes Consultant 22Mar2024.pdf

How to apply

Interested applicants are required to submit their:

1. CV/resume
2. Examples of their publications, ideally demonstrating a variety of work
3. A financial proposal with all-inclusive fee.  Please see the financial proposal template here. Consultancy Financial Offer template.docx
4. Applications without a financial proposal will not be considered.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).  

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

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.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.

Contact: For any queries, please contact: swe-ooi-recruitments@unicef.org