IRS26360 Associate Program Director - Discovery Research
Core
Drive implementation of science projects and contribute to scientific leadership and strategic direction for the Discovery portfolio oriented toward rigorous, transdisciplinary research that makes agrifood systems more productive, inclusive, climate-resilient, and sustainable.
Role type
Associate Program Director (Discovery Research)
Builds
Research portfolio with milestones and indicators, peer-reviewed publications, open datasets, funded proposals, and a pipeline of innovations rated for scaling readiness.
Domain
Agrifood systems, crop science, and international development
Required skills
transdisciplinary project design, systems research leadership, grant writing and donor engagement, budget management, team recruitment and mentoring, international partnership building, research compliance and ethics
Preferred skills
data science integration, gender and inclusion research, real-time feedback monitoring, design-thinking approaches
Technologies
data science tools, participatory research platforms
Responsibilities
Define and oversee execution of the SAS Discovery research strategy; lead and support research in systems and scaling science integrating agronomy, soil, environmental, climate, economics, and social science; ensure co-creation with farmers, national agricultural research systems, universities, and the private sector; drive excellence in science ensuring compliance with standards for research design, implementation, and dissemination; lead, coordinate, and contribute to development of competitive proposals including scientific donor engagement; contribute to the recruitment, development, and mentoring of transdisciplinary teams; build collaborations with national agricultural research systems, universities, the private sector, and international centers; co-manage the handover of validated innovations to the Systems Development and Scaling APD.
