Operational Research Advisor

**BACKGROUND**

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international humanitarian aid organization that provides aid in

more than 70 countries to populations in distress, to victims of natural or manmade disasters and to victims of armed conflicts, without discrimination and irrespective of race, religion, creed, or political affiliation.

MSF Luxembourg is a historical partner section of the MSF movement created in 1986. With 35 staff members, the section’s team works to raise awareness on humanitarian issues among Luxembourg’s population, raise funds needed to finance humanitarian interventions, supports MSF volunteers who go into the field and carry out operational research projects directly linked to health programs to help improve their efficiency and effectiveness.

Nine MSF partner sections (Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, South Africa and Sweden) and the Lebanon Branch Office, make up the Operational Centre Brussels (OCB).

The OCB Medical Department is a network of units, the Brussels Medical Unit (BRUMED in Brussels), the Southern African Medical Unit (SAMU) in Cape Town, the Luxembourg Operational Research unit (LuxOR) in Luxembourg, the Middle East Medical Unit (MEMU) in Beirut and the Brazilian Medical Unit (BRAMU) in Latin America.

Operational research and documentation are an integral part of the medical department activities. There are two relatively autonomous units supporting operational research and field epidemiologists. The LuxOR unit, based in Luxembourg with detached staff in Brussels, South Africa, Beirut, and Toronto, with core activities including operational research capacity building and a focus on research linked to the domains covered by the medical department (as mentioned above). The second unit is SAMU,based in Cape Town, South Africa which focuses on HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C and Tuberculosis.

**FUNCTIONAL INTERACTION**
- The LuxOR Director is the overall medical department reference person regarding guiding global policy and strategic aspects of operational research and the routine epidemiology advisor support structure in OCB and provides overall guidance and management to team members.
- The Programme Officer is co-responsible for team management, research system support, OR coordination and budget. She is also responsible for day to day linkage between LuxOR, Operations and the Medical Department in Brussels.
- The LuxOR team consist of epidemiology, operational research advisors a policy and practice advisor and medical editor. The positions in the team are a mixture between mobile/flying implementation officers and staff based in different countries/MSF-OCB sections, there is no hierarchical link between positions. The operational research advisor will report to the LuxOR Director and Programme Officer.

**MAIN ACTIVITIES/RESPONSABILITIES**

The Operational Research Advisor will support operational research activities at field level. The main tasks are:

- Support the medical department and the operations to define and prioritize the operational research and documentation agenda. More in specific, close collaboration with the medical referents on vaccine preventable diseases and infectious diseases.
- Review/draft operational research study protocols and provide technical and editorial support to comply with MSF Ethics Review Board (ERB) requirements for submission for ethical clearance through the appropriate channels.
- Provide editorial and manuscript writing support for publication, policy briefs, program descriptions, advocacy pieces,according to an agreed platform of delegated responsibility between existing members of the Operational Research team.
- Support advanced data analysis and provide statistical support for ongoing research

projects.
- Conduct field visits to selected projects to support research, discuss research agendas and provide general operational support if needed and relevant. An OR advisor plans approximately 2 visits/year of 2-3 weeks per visit.
- Disseminate research findings through peer-reviewed publications and presentations at conferences/workshops and mentor other researchers for abstract and presentation development for Scientific Days/OR days.
- Be involved with setting up capacity building sessions on operational research (SORT-IT courses and others).
- In link with other members of the team, be directly responsible to regularly update and manage the yearly operational research and documentation agenda.
- Provide support to the pool of epidemiologists when needed.

**EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS**
- Medical or para-medial profile with extensive field experience in MSF or another

humanitarian NGO, including having worked in the context of health systems in a developing country.
- Experience in protocol writing and use of different quantitative study designs, including profound understanding of the concepts of bias and statistical inference.
- Strong evidence to show high capacity/potential