Call for Applications – Research Excellence Consultant
Aboriginal Peoples
Arctic and Northern Regions
Community, Regional & Enterprise Development
Creative Arts, Culture and Heritage
Environment, Energy and Natural Resources
Governance and Public Policy
Information and Communication Technology
Oceans, Fisheries and Aquaculture
Social Justice
Well-being, Health and Biomedical Discovery
Deadlines
Academic Unit: Inquire with your unit
Memorial Deadline: Inquire with RGCS
External Deadline: Friday 30th, October 2020
Description
Terms of Reference: Consultant to Develop Training Modules and Develop, Organize and Facilitate Training Workshops Aimed at Strengthening Effective Research Excellence Assessment Capacities within Science Granting Councils (SGCs) in Africa.
About the SGCI
The Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI) is a multi-donor Initiative with Phase 2 (SGCI-2: 2020-2023) supported by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF).
The overall goal of the SGCI-2 Research Management project is to fortify the capability of Science Granting Councils in explicit areas of research management, namely research excellence (particularly the knowledge and use of tools such as Research Quality Plus framework), research ethics, emerging scientific practices (especially open data, open access and citizen science), Good Financial Grant Practice (GFGP) benchmarking exercise and development of online grant management systems (including databases of peer reviewers).
The Association of African Universities (AAU) and the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) are the consortium partners for the SGCI-2 Research Management project. Both AAU and AAS are two continental higher education bodies with experience in research management, and the AAU has participated in the SGCI-1 as part of the “Theme 3” Consortium. The SGCI-1 provided the AAU with invaluable experiences and lessons of working with and being part of activities taking place at the level of national science systems.
Assessing research excellence has been identified as one of the new critical work packages for SGCI-2, with cross-cutting dimension. It is well recognized that research excellence is integral and fundamental to the mandate of SGCs all over the world. In order to better appreciate and accurately measure the impact of their activities in funding and supporting national science and innovation systems, SGCs need to be conversant with but more importantly, have a clear understanding and capacity to evaluate and effectively deal with an evolving range of issues beyond those captured in traditional impact metrics.
The AAU and the AAS invite suitably qualified consultants or service providers with advanced technical knowledge and experience in research excellence assessments in general and specifically, practical knowledge of the use of the RQ+ framework in conducting research excellence assessment to submit proposals for this exercise.
How to submit Proposal
Interested Consultants/Specialist/Service providers are requested to submit a detailed application outlining their qualifications and suitability for this task, including proposed solution, budgets and detailed workplan and timeline for completion of this task. Applications should be submitted online via the link: https://bit.ly/3kRUG09
Deadlines
The deadline for submission of the proposals is close of business on Friday, 30th October 2020.
Contact Information
If you have any queries concerning this opportunity, please contact the Association of African Universities Director of ICT Services & Knowledge Management, Ms Nodumo DHLAMINI, Email: rdickson@aau.org with a copy to teckpani@aau.org and to the Deputy Director of Programmes at African Academy of Sciences, Dr Alphonsus Neba, Email: a.neba@aasciences.africa
Additional information can be found at the Association of African Universities Website.