Research Fellow Position For A Moe Funded Project

About The Project

This opening is for aResearch Fellow position. The work will involve helping plan the research project activities and assist in executing them. There will be extensive field travel involved.

Benefits

IIMU is a research-intensive institution. You may attend regular workshops by both resident as well as visiting faculty members where research papers are presented and discussed. This particular project provides the opportunity to work with senior management faculty from Monash University, Australia and IIM Lucknow, and learn from the project activities and management processes. In addition, the faculty, both resident and from Australia, are encouraging and supportive of research and would do the utmost to help you build your research career as well as your research network globally.

Stipend are competitive with similar positions in India. The faculty you work with will be willing to provide recommendation letters.

You will receive a monthly stipend and other benefits provided by the Institute i.e. transport facility, subsidised food facility at the mess and medical insurance as per Institute’s policy.

IIMU believes in enabling individuals to achieve their own goals while pursuing common interests. We will do our best to facilitate your professional growth and goals.

Best Match

You should consider yourself a good fit for this position if you are seriously considering pursuing a research career in the fields of either Supply Chain Management or Agriculture. The position will help you build and sharpen your research skills. You must have a Master’s Degree or equivalent.

Responsibilities

• This is a research position in an academic setting. You will assist with:
• Data collection, database creation and data analysis – both qualitative and quantitative. The faculty will help you train on methods as necessary for this project;
• Literature search, summary, presentation and writing;
• Other research project related work including but not limited to field work planning, setting up lab and field experiments, conducting in-depth interviews and managing the research project(s).

Skills and Qualifications

• Must have a Masters' degree from a reputed institution. Degree in Business / Management/ Agriculture. Candidates from the Supply Chain Management discipline will be preferred.
• An open mind to learning new concepts, creativity and hard work.
• Statistical analysis / coding skills in Stata, R, SPSS, SAS, Python, C++ (any/ many).
• Skills in using NVIVO/ RQDA or other qualitative analysis packages is a plus.
• Good English writing skills is a plus.
• MBA from a top-tier institute is a plus.
• The candidate must have high standards in terms of quality of work, attention to detail, ability to multi-task and absolute commitment to task completion.
• Location: Remote
• Positions Vacant: 1 (contractual – for 11 months)
• Applications will be screened until position is filled.
• Please apply with your current CV and a covering letter. In the covering letter, please state your career goals, how this Research Fellow position fits with your career plans, and why you think you are a good fit for this position.

Project Details

The research project is a mixed-method farmer-centric investigation of the Indian agri-fresh produce supply chain. The increase in food standards requirements, rapid industrialization of agricultural-based products and establishment of customer and governmental food safety concerns have resulted in the agri-fresh produce supply chain networks becoming more complex (Chen, 2006; Lowe et al., 2008; Svensson and Wagner,2012). Consequently, concepts of sustainability and supply chain management (SCM) are becoming critically important to the sector. However, over the past two decades, there has been limited change in improving Indian agri-fresh produce supply chains, which suffer from a lack of appropriate infrastructure, food processing facilities, and poor SCM. Most farmers have a limited understanding of supply chain issues involved and what can be achieved through effective supply chain integration and management.

Appropriate implementation of SCM methodologies and technologies will lead to an improvement in overall performance of farmers and the agri-fresh produce sector. These improvements to the economic benefits, societal considerations, competitive advantages, and ecological impacts are significant for national prosperity (Fritz and Schiefer, 2008, Fischer et al., 2010, Kumar et al., 2013). Therefore, it is pertinent to improve productivity and enhance the effectiveness of agri-fresh produce supply chains through adoption of SCM technologies and management practices. Consequently, this study will investigate the adoption of SCM principles, methodologies, and technologies by small landowners and farmers within Indian agri-fresh produce supply chain. Research insights will provide tools for farmer empowerment and inform policymakers on development of efficient supply chain networks and facilitate farmer-market linkages.