GCRO seeks Principal Researcher or Senior Researcher: Quality of Life

  • Date of publication: 08 April 2022

The Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) is a research centre set up as a partnership between the University of Johannesburg (UJ), the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (Wits), the Gauteng Provincial Government and organised local government in Gauteng (SALGA-Gauteng). GCRO’s mission is to build the knowledge base that government, business, labour, civil society and residents all need to develop a functionally integrated, spatially coherent, economically competitive, environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive Gauteng City-Region. We undertake research ourselves and in partnership with others, collect data and use it to benchmark the region locally and internationally, and provide policy support to government, working to the highest academic standards.

GCRO works in diverse areas including economic development, sustainability, space & mobility, governance & intergovernmental relations, and social development. One of our key areas of focus has historically been the collection, analysis and innovative dissemination of primary data on key trends and dynamics in the city-region. Our flagship project in this regard is the Quality of Life Survey, one of South Africa’s largest and longest running social surveys. Through the QoL Survey, which has been run to the highest standards every two years since 2009, we collect a huge amount of data on multi-dimensional well-being in Gauteng, with questions covering socio-economic conditions, perceptions of service delivery and government, and attitudes and opinions on a wide range of personal, social and political issues. The results are shared with government stakeholders, launched publically to widespread media attention, and fed into many applied research and academic research projects. See https://www.gcro.ac.za/research/project/detail/overview-quality-life-survey/

GCRO is seeking to appoint a flexible, multi-skilled Principal Researcher or Senior Researcher to manage its flagship Quality of Life Survey. Appointment as Principal Researcher or Senior Researcher would depend on qualifications and experience; a Principal Researcher is broadly equivalent to a university Associate Professor; and a Senior Researcher is broadly equivalent to a university Senior Lecturer. We are looking for:

● Applicants with a PhD-level qualification, or in exceptional cases a Masters with substantial experience and evidence of progress towards attaining a PhD.

● A candidate with significant survey and data management expertise, able to comfortably manage the complexities of large-scale in-household social surveys. Note that GCRO contracts out QoL fieldwork to external fieldwork service providers, so day-to-day direct management of fieldworkers is not required. But clear expertise with survey design; questionnaire development; sampling and weighting; fieldwork contracting, direction and contract management; quality control; data preparation; and technical documentation of survey processes is essential.

● A candidate with significant quantitative data analysis and results presentation experience. High level statistical analysis skills would be an advantage.

● An applicant who can continue to consolidate and develop QoL related survey and data management systems, processes and practices within GCRO.

● An applicant who can, increasingly over time, provide research leadership on quality of life and multi-dimensional well-being as a cross-disciplinary field of applied and academic research, as well as an arena of policy engagement with government. While QoL data is used across the organisation, research leadership is required to grow the data analysis and presentations skills of more junior researchers, to build international collaborations in the field of quality of life studies, and to innovate new modes by which QoL data can be transmitted to and used by government stakeholders.

A competitive remuneration package at the level of an Associate Professor or Senior Lecturer is available. The successful candidate will be given a five year contract, renewable.

If you have any further queries, please address them to: The Executive Director, GCRO, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050 or e- mailed to info@gcro.ac.za.

Closing date for applications: 13 May 2022
How to apply:

Applicants are invited to apply, by registering their profile on the Wits i-recruitment platform located at https://irec.wits.ac.za and submitting their application. Internal Wits employees are invited to apply directly on Oracle by following the path: iWits /Self Service application/“Apply for a job”.

To apply, submit a covering letter addressing the selection criteria specifically; a detailed CV with names, addresses, contact numbers and email addresses of 3 referees willing to provide references; and certified copies of your academic qualifications, i.e. degrees/diplomas.

Applicants should include examples of published work, preferably your last three published items. The closing date for all applications is 13 May 2022. Shortlisted applicants may be required to sit for skills and psychometric assessments as part of the interview process.

The applicant must adhere to the Covid regulations of the University of the Witwatersrand https://www.wits.ac.za/covid19/vaccine-implementation/
The University is committed to employment equity. Preference may be given to appointable applicants from the underrepresented designated groups in terms of the relevant employment equity plans and policies of the University. The University retains the right to verify all information provided by candidates.
Please note that correspondence will only be entered into with shortlisted candidates. The University and GCRO reserves the right not to make an appointment or to re- advertise.
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