We're hiring: G-FINDER casual research assistants

Impact Global Health is currently hiring for Research Assistants to join the team in tracking annual investment into R&D for new products and technologies for the G-FINDER survey from May to the end of October 2025. Training will be provided early May with interviews and training conducted online. Research Assistants can work from our Surry Hills office in Sydney, Australia, or remotely as required. Candidates based in Australia, Asia, Europe and Africa will be considered, noting there should be some overlap with Australian business hours. We are particularly looking for self-motivated and independent people. Candidates with experience working remotely and an appropriate IT set-up are desirable.

Having the right tools to manage and prevent disease and unnecessary suffering is fundamental to our human right to health. Yet there are still great inequities in the way biomedical innovations are financed, researched, developed and distributed around the world, leaving many health conditions without safe, effective treatments for vast, neglected populations. This is a situation that holds all of us back, including our global economies, families, security, and quality of life.

Impact Global Health (formerly known as Policy Cures Research) is a powerful counsel to help the global health community make informed decisions, take actions and have impact. We are a not-for-profit research and policy organisation, most well-known for building the gold-standard database of global health R&D funding, G-FINDER. The G-FINDER project collects data on global investments made in research and development for neglected infectious diseases, sexual & reproductive health, and emerging infectious diseases. This data is made freely available and is a critical tool for informed decision-making in global health R&D.

The G-FINDER project – currently in its 18^th year – tracks annual investment into R&D for new products and technologies to address priority global health challenges. This includes funding for basic research and the development of new drugs, vaccines, diagnostics, and other tools for global health priorities that disproportionately affect people in low- and middle-income countries, such as neglected diseases, emerging infectious diseases, and sexual & reproductive health issues. We collect primary data from funders through an online survey, as well as offering offline (Excel) submissions for select organisations. The survey runs from May through to the end of July 2025, and is followed by a period of data checking and cleaning likely running until the end of October 2025. The basis of this project is an annual survey of the world’s funders and developers of global health R&D. The data collected in this survey has been used to create a unique repository of investment data, the G-FINDER data portal, providing an unmatched resource for policy-makers, donors, researchers and industry.

Duties include:

• Contacting local and international organisations (via email and phone), requesting, and following up on their participation in the survey, and addressing their questions.
• Entering, processing, and cleaning the survey data when received – checking for inconsistencies, missing fields, etc.
• “Scope checking” – Reviewing and categorising the survey data received based on disease or health issue, product type and R&D stage. This involves comparing the incoming data to our scope documents.
• “Cross checking” – Comparing funder and recipient data to match and confirm correct information.

Key responsibilities

• Call and email survey participants to encourage them to complete the survey and answer their basic queries. Staff will be on hand to assist you with any questions that have not been covered in your training.
• Maintain meticulous records of your correspondence in our database and Excel spreadsheets. This is essential, and we expect a high level of proactive responsibility in keeping your manager up-to-date on your progress.
• Collect, review, edit and upload R&D grant data submitted offline.
• Read grant descriptions and make decisions on disease, product, and R&D stage allocations according to the scope of the G-FINDER survey.
• Review R&D grant data submitted by funders and recipients to match entries and avoid double counting
• Assist staff with other research tasks as needed. Some basic data analysis may be involved.

Skills, knowledge and experience requirements

• Education: microbiology, medicine, science, or pharmacy. Only applicants with a background in these areas will be considered.
• An understanding of product development (e.g. drugs, vaccines, diagnostics) and R&D phases and processes is essential (e.g. basic research, discovery and preclinical research, clinical trials and their phases, post-registration studies).
• Outstanding attention to detail and record-keeping skills, particularly when working remotely.
• Excellent asynchronous communication skills, particularly when remotely and across time zones
• A clear speaking voice, good command of English and a good phone manner.
• Must be comfortable cold-calling our contacts and encouraging them to provide data.
• Intermediate-to-advanced Microsoft Excel skills, and good knowledge of other Microsoft Office programs.
• Good writing skills, ability to communicate in a professional and concise manner.
• Foreign language skills are desirable (Portuguese, Japanese, Mandarin, French or German).

Hours of work

• Shift times will be flexible, with an expectation of a minimum of 15 hours (equivalent of 2 days) during the working week. Candidates can work up to around 35 hours, spread across 2-4 shifts per week where possible / necessary.
• The number of shifts per week may vary throughout the contract period depending on workload, but it is essential that you can commit to the minimum of 15 hours per week.

Location

We will consider candidates based in or outside Australia, but non-Australian candidates are preferably based in Asia, Africa, or Europe – we have staff in the UK, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya. Our office is at Paramount House, 55 Brisbane St, Surry Hills NSW. When working remotely, we expect candidates to have access to a well-functioning computer with the latest operating system installed (preferably Windows 10 or 11) and unrestricted internet access during working hours.

Applications close Monday CET 23:59PM 21 April 2025

Applications via email or any other format will not be considered.

Pay rate

AUD $40/hour. Successful applicants outside of Australia are responsible for reporting this income to their respective national taxation agency.