Job Opportunity for Director / Associate Director, Policy, Research and Strategy at FAST in New Delhi

Position: Director / Associate Director, Policy, Research and Strategy

Background

We live in a world of fast-paced innovation today, driven by exponential progress in science and technology (S&T) and the growth of vibrant ecosystems to commercialize research. India must aspire to be a top 3 S&T Nation, where the first two places are occupied by US and China today. To do so, India needs to be at the forefront of research: the creation of new knowledge (research) and its translation to economic and social goods. This is imperative for long-term industry differentiation and competitiveness, National security, and self-reliance to attain our socio-economic goals.

The time for India to revive its S&T agenda is now or never. We have the economic size, the talent pool, a large market size and a vibrant startup ecosystem to both invest in research and be able to translate S&T knowledge into economic value. For India to be a global leader, exponential S&T growth needs to go hand-in-hand with economic growth and social progress.

While the West has traditionally dominated global S&T, many Asian countries such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan have made rapid progress in the past, and China has dramatically scaled its S&T prowess to become #2 in the world behind USA. Indias Contribution is relatively dwarfed – its high impact research output is ranked 1oth, with US & China being the top 2, no Indian university shows up in top 100 research rankings, with just 1 company in worlds top 50 innovative companies.

Way of Work

The Foundation for Advancing Science and Technology (FAST India) is a non-profit institution of excellence dedicated to catalyse Indias journey to a top 3 S&T Nation. We identify that the major stakeholders for S&T include the government, the research institutions and the industry. There are systemic challenges with how these actors today work, such as size of ambition, right incentives, resource allocation and efficiency. Our way of working is to identify these challenges, develop and vigorously advocate policy solutions and best practices to address them. We also identify high-leverage projects that can have an outsized impact on the ecosystem, and run programs with stakeholders, where we lend our team of experts, to make sure best practices are used and the program is impactful. At maturity, we see the ecosystem develop the virtuous cycle of research funding, new breakthrough research, translation into economic value, and re-investment. While we build the ecosystem, we also look forward to build a strong narrative of S&T leadership in India and create political salience around it.

In a short period of time, FAST has started engagements with the Office of PSA (Govt of India), NITI Aayog, Capacity Building Commission of India and Banaras Hindu University, among others. Our projects span easing procurement for scientists, re-envisaging government and industry financing of research, fixing institutional grant management process, etc. We have produced multiple succinct policy briefs for the governmental and institutional sector. We also run Indias largest non-profit science festival in India called the India Science Fest, which has seen an audience of 50,000 people over the last three years. We also recently launched a Science Book Fellowship to spur public science books in India.

Leadership

FAST India is founded by Varun Aggarwal, who is a successful entrepreneur and researcher, and Ashish Dhawan, a private equity investor turned philanthropist. Varun built and sold Indias largest job assessment company, Aspiring Minds and wrote a book on the science ecosystem of India. Ashish Dhawan is the chairperson of Ashoka University, a leading liberal arts university in India, and Central Square Foundation, and is passionate about promoting science in India.

FASTs advisory board is chaired by Prof. Vijay Raghavan, an eminent scientist and ex-PSA to Govt of India. The advisory board includes Sanjay Sarma (MIT), Venkatesh Narayanamurti (Harvard Univ), Kris Gopalakrishnan, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Dr. Swaminathan Sivaram (IISER), Thomas Barlow, Vijay Chandru (IISc), Samir K. Brahmachari and Gagandeep Kang.

Pre-reading

Varuns talk on his book explaining Indias S&T ecosystem and the need for change

Keynote Remarks and Panel Discussion at India Science Fest about why India needs to invigorate its S&T ecosystem

Policy and best practices briefs by FAST

Position Summary

We are looking to hire an exceptional Director / Associate Director for a leadership role in Policy, Research and Strategy in an exciting time of organizational growth and development. As Director / Associate Director, you will provide policy and research expertise and devise FAST Indias strategy to liberalize the S&T ecosystem. You will work closely with leaders in the S&T space and other key stakeholders to advance FAST Indias policy work.

FAST India has already signed Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with the Office of Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, Capacity Building Commission, Government of India, and a few S&T labs for collaboration on policy and other projects in the S&T ecosystem.

This is a high-energy, entrepreneurial role and a great opportunity for those who enjoy working in a start-up environment and care deeply about the impact sector.

Key Roles and Responsibilities

The key responsibilities of the Director / Associate Director leading the team for Policy, Research & Strategy include:

• Understanding the Indian S&T policy landscape: Understanding the multiple national and state level policy initiatives in this sector, and studying their effectiveness is key to the role. This includes identifying critical policy gaps which need to be addressed and thereafter proposing well-researched interventions.
• Developing appropriate policy frameworks: Take the lead in framing policies that help bring efficiency and effectiveness in R&D financing, processes etc. with the aim to enhance Ease of Doing Research, dismantle barriers to science entrepreneurship in India.
• Driving stakeholder engagement: Support and drive stakeholder engagement including senior level relationships at the central or state governments, funders, research institutes, think tanks, industrialists, and top S&T experts to ensure recognition of FAST India as a respected and effective player in the Indian S&T domain.

The Ideal candidate:

• has a degree in Science, Economics or humanities and has completed an MBA or Masters from an institute of repute
• has about 8 or more years of experience in the consulting or policy domain related to the development sector, primarily in research and policy development
• deep thinker, has strong research aptitude and interest, capable of anchoring consulting conversations, peer reviews, round tables etc. with very senior sector experts
• has some exposure of working with Central/State Governments of India
• has managed / mentored a small team in recent roles
• has outstanding communication skills and excellent report writing and presentation skills
• Understands how the system works, and real-life implementation challenges. Has deep analytical and research rigor, but is practical.

Remuneration

Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy pay scales and with organizations working with a similar mandate.

Location

New Delhi, India