Consultancy – Neurotechnology policy consultant – Global Office of Research and Foresight – 10 months – Remote/Work from home

UNICEF works in a few of the world’s hardest locations, to achieve the world’s most deprived youngsters. To save lots of their lives. To defend their rights. To assist them fulfill their potential. 

Throughout 190 nations and territories, we work for each youngster, all over the place, every single day, to construct a greater world for everybody. 

And we by no means surrender. 

For each youngster, solutions 

UNICEF Innocenti – International Workplace of Analysis and Foresight (GORaF) is the devoted analysis workplace of UNICEF. It undertakes and commissions analysis and foresight on rising or present problems with relevance for youngsters to tell the strategic instructions, insurance policies and applications of UNICEF and its companions. The International Workplace explores rising points, identifies analysis gaps, brings collectively present researchers, and helps or undertakes analysis, foresight and knowledge assortment to deal with crucial questions, develop coverage suggestions and inform international debates related to youngsters.

Fast developments on the convergence of AI and neurotechnology present unprecedented potential for capturing, sharing and manipulating info from the human mind. Neurotechnology gives highly effective alternatives for bettering youngsters’s well being, well-being and optimizing training, but in addition presents new challenges to youngster rights that have to be addressed to stop hurt and unintended penalties. If neurotechnology progresses unchecked, it will possibly influence on youngsters’s proper to freedom of thought and their psychological privateness, affecting them right this moment and all through their lives. UNICEF Innocenti has beforehand commissioned a report on neurotechnology and youngsters, which briefly describes neurotechnology, its present and potential/future makes use of, advantages and dangers.

UNICEF Innocenti is recruiting a guide to increase this work by specializing in neurotechnology, youngsters and their rights. The guide will analyze insurance policies and laws that shield youngsters within the period of neurotechnology, and the place there are regulatory gaps. The guide will assist convey collectively a neighborhood of specialists, and with their steerage: illustrate to authorities policymakers, youngster rights teams, the non-public sector and the UN how neurotechnology can influence youngsters right this moment and sooner or later by use instances, and develop guiding suggestions into neurotechnology policymaking and regulation in order that youngsters are protected and empowered.

How will you make a distinction? 

Main areas of labor and duty:

1. Constructing on preliminary background report carried out for UNICEF, determine key stakeholders to contain within the challenge, occasions to focus on for optimum advocacy influence and visibility for youngsters’s proper, and coverage/regulatory processes to affect sooner or later.

2. Assemble and convene an professional advisory group with data of neurotechnology, coverage and youngsters’s rights within the digital surroundings, to assist information the challenge’s focus areas, implementation and evaluation. Specialists may come from the organizations just like the NeuroRights Basis, universities conducting analysis into neurotechnology, non-public sector corporations, and UN our bodies reminiscent of Workplace of the Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Workplace of the Tech Envoy responding to the Secretary-Common’s name within the Our Widespread Agenda report to stop potential harms within the digital house from neurotechnology. Convene 4 professional group conferences.

3. Develop a challenge plan, report define, standards for potential use instances to reveal impacts on rights, and strategy to regulatory panorama scanning, with critiques/inputs from the professional advisory group.

4. Frivolously map and summarize the coverage/regulatory surroundings on the subject of neurotechnology, and for youngsters, particularly, to disclose gaps in present normative frameworks or laws, and alternatives for intervention. International and nationwide paperwork ought to be lined.

5. Write a steerage report (as much as 5,000 phrases doc) with:
– Summarize key factors from the background paper (for readers who might solely view this steerage report).
– Illustrative use instances and foresight strategies reminiscent of future eventualities or personas of how youngsters do and may work together with neurotechnology ought to be included, with explanations of how neurotechnology impacts – positively and negatively – on youngsters’s rights. These ought to purpose to make impacts relatable and tangible and assist information precautionary insurance policies and laws (by an motion/inaction lens for policymakers). This part builds on a few of the makes use of described within the background report.
– Updates on present efforts round neurotechnology and rights, such because the authorized evaluation being undertaken by the UN Human Rights Council. Mild evaluation and abstract of related normative frameworks or laws, with gaps and alternatives for intervention.
– A set of guiding suggestions, geared toward policymakers and regulators in addition to neurotechnology builders, for the way youngsters may be empowered and guarded with neurotechnology.

6. As a part of creating the primary report, conduct key informant interviews and convene and co-lead a (digital or face-to-face) workshop with the professional advisory group to develop/validate the suggestions to guard and empower youngsters.

7. Writer one articles/weblog publish to present visibility to the report and difficulty to be printed by UNICEF.

8. Liaise with colleagues engaged on knowledge governance to determine and cross-reference potential synergies.

 

Cost schedule
Deliverable/Output:	To be paid on:
Deliverables package deal 1: • Assembly notes from first professional advisory group assembly together with key motion factors • Undertaking plan; report define, together with standards for potential use instances, and template to be used instances; advocacy and dissemination plan, together with specialists, organizations/governments, occasions and processes to affect; all with critiques/inputs from the professional advisory group and UNICEF	15 June 2024
Deliverables package deal 2: • Notes from 8 informant interviews • Draft steerage report (v0.1), reviewed by the professional advisory group and UNICEF and up to date with their inputs • Assembly notes from second and third professional advisory group conferences together with key motion factors	30 November 2024
Deliverables package deal 3: • Assembly notes from workshop to develop/validate the suggestions on neurotechnology and youngsters • Remaining steerage report (v1), reviewed by the professional advisory group and UNICEF and up to date with their inputs • One article/weblog publish to present visibility to the report and difficulty • Assembly notes from fourth professional advisory group assembly together with key motion factors	28 February 2025

To qualify as an advocate for each youngster you should have: 

• A minimal of eight years {of professional} work expertise at nationwide or worldwide ranges conducting analysis, authorized or coverage evaluation, and report writing within the discipline of rising applied sciences associated to youngster or human rights.
• Demonstrated expertise or data within the discipline of ICT and neurotechnology coverage or observe required. Expertise with neurotechnology or youngsters in creating nation contexts is fascinating.
• Wonderful written and oral communication abilities and glorious consideration to element. Confirmed expertise of writing coverage suggestions is an asset. Expertise presenting outputs at conferences and to policymakers is an asset.
• Motivated self-starter, with demonstrated means to work successfully and sensitively in geographically dispersed groups and throughout cultures.
• Demonstrated means to work in a multicultural surroundings; expertise working within the UN or different worldwide improvement group an asset.
• Capability to arrange personal work and to hold out a challenge with restricted supervision in keeping with deadlines.
• Dedication to UNICEF’s core values of care, respect, integrity, transparency, and accountability.

Fluency in English is required. Information of one other official UN language (reminiscent of Arabic, French, or Spanish) is an asset. 

For each Little one, you reveal:

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

 To view our competency framework, please go to  here. 

UNICEF is right here to serve the world’s most deprived youngsters and our international workforce should mirror the range of these youngsters. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, no matter their race/ethnicity, age, incapacity, gender identification, sexual orientation, faith, nationality, socio-economic background, or every other private attribute.

UNICEF gives reasonable accommodation for consultants/particular person contractors with disabilities. This will embrace, for instance, accessible software program, journey help for missions or private attendants. We encourage you to reveal your incapacity throughout your software in case you want cheap lodging in the course of the choice course of and afterwards in your task. 

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance coverage on conduct that’s incompatible with the goals and targets of the United Nations and UNICEF, together with sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF additionally adheres to strict youngster safeguarding ideas. All chosen candidates might be anticipated to stick to those requirements and ideas and can subsequently endure rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will embrace the verification of educational credential(s) and employment historical past. Chosen candidates could also be required to supply further info to conduct a background verify. 

Circumstances of Consultancy

1. The Marketing consultant is not going to be entitled to any separate journey entitlements underneath the Contract. All expenditure associated to the journey plans set out within the Contract are deemed to be lined by the lump sum charge. It’s seemingly that there might be one journey mission, however the location and time are to be decided. Within the case of journey, it shall be additional added by an modification setting out the extra charge in consideration of the extra journey necessities on the next foundation: (a) UNICEF can pay for journey in economic system class through probably the most direct and economical route; supplied nonetheless that in distinctive circumstances, reminiscent of for medical causes, journey in enterprise class could also be accredited by UNICEF on a case-by-case foundation. (b) UNICEF will reimburse the Marketing consultant for out-of-pocket bills related to such journey by paying an quantity not exceeding the each day subsistence allowance that will be paid to workers members enterprise related journey for official functions.
2. UNICEF Innocenti will help consultants with preparations for visas, work permits, vaccinations, and so forth.
3. UNICEF doesn’t regard People engaged underneath a consultancy contract as “workers members” underneath the Workers Rules and Guidelines of the United Nations and UNICEF’s insurance policies and procedures. Consultants are subsequently not entitled to advantages reminiscent of depart, pension and medical insurance coverage protection. Their circumstances of service might be ruled by their contract and the Common Circumstances of Contracts for the Companies of Consultants.
4. Cost {of professional} charges might be primarily based on submission of agreed deliverables. UNICEF reserves the suitable to withhold fee in case the deliverables submitted are less than the required customary or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the a part of the guide.
5. Consultants are inspired to make sure that they absolutely perceive (a) the necessities of every deliverable and (b) the workload related to reaching a deliverable.
6. UNICEF Innocenti acknowledges that, as a result of areas of a few of its analysis, occasions might happen that both delay deliverables or stop them from being accomplished. These occasions have to be reviewed on a case-by-case foundation to find out the influence on the fee schedule of the contract. It’s UNICEF Innocenti’s goal to be truthful to consultants in conditions the place deliverables are delayed or now not attainable by no wrongdoing of the guide.
7. Consultants are liable for figuring out their tax liabilities and for the fee of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with native or different relevant legal guidelines.

Remarks:  

Solely shortlisted candidates might be contacted and advance to the following stage of the choice course of. 

People engaged underneath a consultancy or particular person contract is not going to be thought-about “workers members” underneath the Workers Rules and Guidelines of the United Nations and UNICEF’s insurance policies and procedures, and won’t be entitled to advantages supplied therein (reminiscent of depart entitlements and medical insurance coverage protection). Their circumstances of service might be ruled by their contract and the Common Circumstances of Contracts for the Companies of Consultants and Particular person Contractors. Consultants and particular person contractors are liable for figuring out their tax liabilities and for the fee of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with native or different relevant legal guidelines. 

The chosen candidate is solely accountable to make sure that the visa (relevant) and medical insurance required to carry out the duties of the contract are legitimate for the complete interval of the contract. Chosen candidates are topic to affirmation of fully-vaccinated standing in opposition to SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Well being Group (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which have to be met previous to taking over the task. It doesn’t apply to consultants who will work remotely and are usually not anticipated to work on or go to UNICEF premises, programme supply areas or immediately work together with communities UNICEF works with, nor to journey to carry out features for UNICEF during their consultancy contracts.