Consultancy: Senior Researcher Consultant - Req.#581592

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. 

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. 

And we never give up. 

For every child, HOPE!

Vacancy Announcement: Consultant Consultancy Title: Senior Researcher Consultant Section/Division/Duty Station: Division of Data, Analytics, Planning and Monitoring (DAPM), New York HQ  Duration: June 5, 2025 to October 6, 2027 Home/ Office Based: REMOTE About UNICEF  If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries. BACKGROUND Purpose of Activity/Assignment:   For UNICEF, it is strategic within the Division of Data, Analytics, Planning and Monitoring (DAPM) work plan, to use and generate new sources of real-time information to better inform decision makers in the development and humanitarian ecosystem. To be able to do this, DAPM has created the Frontier Data Network (FDN), a global initiative to connect, share and ensure UNICEF harnesses the potential of frontier data technologies in an ethical way. The focus is on capacity building, coaching, and facilitation, integrated in a community of practice model that facilitates the collaboration with partners and collaborators everywhere. UNICEF ́s Frontier Data Tech Team is seeking to hire a senior researcher to identify and drive analysis and research on key portfolio areas such as AI for climate change, humanitarian action, generative AI, algorithmic equity and public health emergencies as well as to support key scientific engagements, mobilization and collaborations. An impact driven, creative and team player person with initiative, technical expertise and writing skills that can help us identify and achieve impact, relevance, opportunity and potential partners through research and applied science. This undertaking is about reinforcing UNICEF's commitment to data-driven decision-making and ensuring that every action taken by the organization is guided by a steadfast dedication to advancing the rights and well-being of children worldwide. Through this work, UNICEF aims to leverage cutting-edge data science and artificial intelligence technologies to enhance decision-making in both development and humanitarian settings. This consultancy aims to strengthen UNICEF’s scientific and research capabilities in the domains of Generative AI, machine learning, and natural language processing for addressing challenging in the domains of children on the move, environmental emergencies, as well as assessment of biases in data and methodologies. The consultant will undertake research and applied data science analysis to drive forward UNICEF’s innovation agenda in key focus areas. The main objectives of this consultancy are: -To explore and propose methods based on Generative AI to enhance data-driven decision-making, improve predictiveanalytics, and optimize content generation for UNICEF’s data platforms. -To analyse migration trends, patterns, and humanitarian implications using large-scale datasets and advanced datamodelling techniques. - To develop and enhance early alert systems for environmental emergencies by integrating real-time data sources, predictive modelling, and geospatial analysis. -To contribute to the assessment and monitoring of progress towards SDGs, leveraging big data, AI-driven analytics, and impact assessments. -This work builds on an existing suite of frontier data technology projects and complements ongoing development of a portfolio of frontier data analytics through the Frontier Data Network. The work requires deliverable support in the following 5 areas: 1) Structure scientific questions on frontier data tech applied to areas such as migration and displacement, humanitarian response and preparedness, automatic content generation, and sustainable development goals. This implies a) to identify and develop key scientific questions in frontier data technologies; b) to interact with internal and external experts, leveraging UNICEF’s frontier data network to curate and structure the most impactful scientific questions on frontier data technologies to develop key portfolio areas for children on the move aiming to improve h