Research Manager (Media Development)

Contract type: Fixed Term Contract until September 2026

Location: The role will be based in one of BBC Media Action’s offices in Africa or Asia. Current BBC Media Action offices are in the following cities, and the role could be based in any of these, subject to the prevailing security situation at the time of appointment: Abuja, Addis Ababa, Dar Es Salaam, Delhi, Dhaka, Freetown, Hargeisa, Jakarta, Juba, Kabul, Kathmandu, Lusaka, Nairobi, Phnom Penh, Tunis, Yangon. Applications are welcome from anyone with the existing right to work in any of those countries.

Salary: The successful applicant will be employed and based in their home country, with salary set according to BBC Media Action’s local pay scales in that country.

This role may involve working with groups of vulnerable children, youth, and adults. For the successful candidate, mandatory training will be provided on BBC Media Action’s safeguarding policy and staff code of conduct. BBC Media Action operates a zero-tolerance policy concerning all forms of abuse and exploitation of vulnerable people. A police background check may form part of the recruitment process.

If you need to discuss adjustments or access requirements for the interview process please contact the reasonable.adjustments@bbc.co.uk. For any general queries, please contact: bbchr@bbc.co.uk.

BBC Media Action

BBC Media Action is the BBC’s international development organisation, and we believe in the power of media and communication for good. We work in more than 20 countries around the world, supporting the independent media essential to democracy and development. Each year our projects and programmes reach over 100 million people facing poverty, inequality and insecurity with information they can trust, helping to improve health, bridge divides, challenge prejudice, and save and change lives. We follow the editorial standards and values of the BBC, but we rely on funding from donors and partners to carry out our work.

With new funding from the UK government and the European Union, we are launching two projects aiming to better improve the resilience of media ecosystems worldwide, contributing to protecting and promoting democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms and counter mis- and disinformation. The projects will operate across around twenty countries and involve more than a dozen global, regional and local media development partners as well as dozens of national and local media organisations.

Job Introduction

The Research Manager (Media Development) will be responsible for ensuring research and Monitoring & Evaluation are well designed technically across the two multi-country media development projects, and is appropriately implemented, reported and disseminated to a range of audiences. Reporting to a Senior Research Manager, the Research Manager (Media Development) will work with local counterparts in BBC Media Action country offices and consortium member organisations to conduct research to build an evidence base which can be used to support project decision making, demonstrate project impact, and support global learning on effective media development.

As more BBC Media Action projects focus on developing capacity of media and supporting healthy information ecosystems, the Research Manager (Media Development) will specialise in conducting research which will help to understand media development and advance organisational understanding and management of media resilience metrics, as well as the measurement of the impact of media development projects.

Main Responsibilities

• Commission research activities including: content analysis, audience analytics, social media/digital analytics, in-depth interviews, outcome harvesting/mapping, and process tracing.
• Undertake – and support others to design and undertake – research and analysis that will help to inform project activities, monitor behavioural change and policy outcomes, and produce insights about effective media development.
• Coordinate research activities across the two project consortia, ensuring timely, high-quality, and coordinated implementation of research and Monitoring & Evaluation activities.
• Communicate project Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning insights in a simple and intuitive format for all stakeholders, supporting interpretation and utilisation of the findings, working in partnership with in-country research teams to deliver such analysis.
• Develop organisational knowledge on demonstrating impact of media development and media ecosystems projects. Support teams to increase their understanding of outcome-oriented Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning models for behavioural change, policy change, and systems change.

Are you the right candidate?

• Skills in designing and running qualitative research, including organizational/capacity assessments, social listening, in-depth interviews, focus groups, process tracing, and content analysis.
• Skills in analysis, visualisation and interpretation of data. Skills in some or all of the following are a great benefit: statistical modelling tools (e.g. SPSS, R, Python, STATA), data visualisation tools (e.g., Tableau, Power BI) and/or social listening tools (e.g., Brandwatch, Meltwater, CrowdTangle/Meta Content Library).
• Experience working with a range of results frameworks and evidence-based performance reporting, including good technical understanding of Monitoring & Evaluation approaches and standards in an international development context.
• Experience designing and implementing a system to digitally collect, analyse and present research data which can be used by a range of partners.
• Knowledge and experience of working constructively with a range of stakeholders to design and deliver media development research, including practitioners, journalists, and researchers. Experience and understanding of applying and training others to use audience research and Monitoring & Evaluation tools.
• Experience monitoring trends in broadcast and digital media usage.
• In-depth knowledge of one or more of the following countries/regions would be an advantage: Latin America, MENA, South Asia, South-East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa.

About the BBC

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.

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We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.