Background

Egypt is pursuing a major shift toward a sustainable and innovative knowledge driven economy, recognizing innovation as a core pathway for overcoming economic challenges and achieving long term growth. Despite notable progress such as Greater Cairo being listed among the top one hundred global science and technology clusters and Egypt’s improved rankings in the Global Innovation Index and Global Knowledge Index, significant untapped potential remains in translating research outputs, university capabilities, and scientific assets into tangible economic and social value. Persistent gaps in technology transfer, innovation financing, institutional capacity, and ecosystem coordination continue to limit the contribution of higher education and scientific research to national development.

To address these challenges, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research launched the National Policy for Sustainable Innovation 2030. This policy outlines a comprehensive agenda to strengthen talent pipelines, enhance research and development capabilities, improve technology transfer, expand innovation financing, and advance innovation governance. UNDP and the Ministry are partnering to bring this agenda into action through a multi-year project that aims to build four key enablers which are access to talent, technology transfer, access to finance, and enabling governance. The project also focuses on achieving three strategic objectives which are strengthening research and development capability, bridging the gap between research and innovation, and developing national innovation capability. Through twenty-seven coordinated activities, the project seeks to accelerate Egypt’s innovation ecosystem and support the achievement of national development targets for the year two thousand thirty.

To ensure successful implementation of this ambitious agenda, UNDP requires a Project Specialist who can provide strong technical leadership in design, research, innovation, and ecosystem development. Working closely with both institutions, the Specialist will support the co creation of solutions, coordinate technical workstreams, oversee research and evidence generation, strengthen partnerships, and contribute to the development of platforms, mechanisms, and collaborative initiatives that will enable the national innovation system to deliver meaningful and measurable impact.

Duties and Responsibilities

Strategic and Technical Leadership:

• Lead the application of systems thinking, strategic innovation, and human-centered design approaches to guide the co-creation and implementation of solutions across all project outputs, in collaboration with technical teams, stakeholders including researchers and universities staff, technology transfer officers, and partners.
• Provide strategic and technical guidance to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MoHESR) on innovation ecosystem strengthening, drawing on global best practices.
• Oversee and contribute to the commercialization of scientifically based technologies by supporting the translation of research innovations into market-ready products or services, assisting in identifying potential partners and investors, and ensuring alignment with intellectual property and regulatory requirements.
• Coordinate development and piloting of programs, policy instruments, frameworks, platforms, mechanisms, and partnership models.

Research, Evidence, and Knowledge Management:

• Integrate behavioral insights into initiatives related to technology transfer, commercialization, innovation culture, and entrepreneurship.
• Lead and coordinate qualitative and mixed-methods research initiatives, case studies, user research, assessments, and evidence-generation with consultants and technical teams.
• Translate research findings into actionable recommendations for policy, institutional design, and innovation practices.
• Support adaptive learning by ensuring high-quality project documentation, reports, and knowledge products.
• Support dissemination of lessons learned, case studies, and evidence generated by technical teams.

Partnerships, Networks, and Collaboration Platforms:

• Coordinate multi-stakeholder engagement with ministries, Higher-Education Institutions (HEIs), research centers, industry, investors, and development partners.
• Develop and maintain strategic partnerships with local and global universities, research centers, private sector actors, venture funds, and civil society organizations.
• Facilitate platforms, networks, and consortia to drive joint research, innovation programs, and knowledge exchange.
• Collaborate to the development of Memorandum of Understanding, pilot collaborations, and joint initiatives in priority innovation areas.
• Organize and co-organize conferences, events, workshops in global forums to enhance the visibility and positioning of MoHESR at the global level

Project Coordination and Oversight:

• Ensure strategic management of the project and provide day-to-day technical, financial, and administrative support for the delivery of the Projects’ activities
• Contribute to the development and monitoring of action plans.
• Oversee and ensure the work quality of project staff, technical officers, and consultants.
• Supervise and contribute to the preparation of progress monitoring reports, activity designs, briefing papers, technical reports, situation updates, M&E documents, and other documentation as may be required in project implementation.

Institutional Arrangement

• The Project Specialist will report to the Assistant Resident Representative / Inclusive Growth & Innovation Team Leader.

Competencies

Core Competencies

• Achieve Results: LEVEL 3: Set and align challenging, achievable objectives for multiple projects, have lasting impact
• Think Innovatively: LEVEL 3: Proactively mitigate potential risks, develop new ideas to solve complex problems
• Learn Continuously: LEVEL 3: Create and act on opportunities to expand horizons, diversify experiences
• Adapt with Agility: LEVEL 3: Proactively initiate and champion change, manage multiple competing demands
• Act with Determination: LEVEL 3: Think beyond immediate task/barriers and take action to achieve greater results
• Engage and Partner: LEVEL 3: Political savvy, navigate complex landscape, champion inter-agency collaboration
• Enable Diversity and Inclusion: LEVEL 3: Appreciate benefits of diverse workforce and champion inclusivity

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies 

Business Direction & Strategy

• Strategic Thinking
  • Develop effective strategies and prioritized plans in line with UNDP’s mission and objectives, based on the systemic analysis of challenges, opportunities and potential risks;
  • Link the general vision to reality on the ground to create tangible targeted solutions;
  • Learn from a variety of sources to anticipate and effectively respond to both current and future trends;
  • Demonstrate foresight.
• Systems Thinking 
  • Ability to use objective problem analysis and judgement to understand how interrelated elements coexist within an overall process or system, and to consider how altering one element can impact on other parts of the system.

Business Development  

• Knowledge Generation  
  • Ability to research information and to turn it into useful knowledge, relevant for context, or responsive to a stated need. 
  • Ability to apply existing concepts to new situations, and to develop new concepts to generate workable solutions and new approaches. 
  • Knowledge of relevant concepts, conceptual models, and theories that can be useful in addressing new situations. 
• Knowledge Facilitation   
  • Ability to animate individuals and groups, internally and externally, and to design and facilitate activities, to share and exchange knowledge, information and ideas.
  • Knowledge of tools and approaches to stimulate active participation, contribution, and exchange. 

Business Management  

• Communication 
  • Communicate in a clear, concise and unambiguous manner both through written and verbal communication; 
  • To tailor messages and choose communication methods depending on the audience.
  • Ability to manage communications internally and externally, through media, social media and other appropriate channels.

Partnership management           

• Relationship Management          
  • Ability to engage with a wide range of public and private partners, build, sustain and/or strengthen working relations, trust and mutual understanding.

Required Skills and Experience

Min. Education requirements

• Advanced university degree (master's degree or equivalent) in Public Policy, Social Sciences, Strategic Design, Innovation Management, or related field is required. 
• Or A first-level university degree (bachelor’s degree) in the above fields, in combination with an additional two years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Min. years of relevant work experience

• Minimum 5 years (with master´s degree) or 7 years (with bachelor´s degree) of relevant experience in innovation, strategic design, R&D, or entrepreneurship ecosystem development.

Required skills

• Experience in strategic design, innovation programs, behavioral insights and/or human-centered design.
• Experience in stakeholder mapping, ecosystem engagement, and establishing strategic partnership with government, academia, private sector, and civil society.
• Experience in effective partnership development with national counterparts, development partners, private sector, and civil society.

Desired skills in addition to the competencies covered in the Competencies section

• Knowledge of local and global innovation landscape.
• Experience coordinating the work of multi-stakeholder teams and liaising with external project partners, including consultants.
• Previous experience in UN.

Required Language(s)

• Fluency in English and Arabic is required.

Equal opportunity

As an equal opportunity employer, UNDP values diversity as an expression of the multiplicity of nations and cultures where we operate and, as such, we encourage qualified applicants from all backgrounds to apply for roles in the organization. Our employment decisions are based on merit and suitability for the role, without discrimination. 

UNDP is also committed to creating an inclusive workplace where all personnel are empowered to contribute to our mission, are valued, can thrive, and benefit from career opportunities that are open to all.

Sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse of authority

UNDP does not tolerate harassment, sexual harassment, exploitation, discrimination and abuse of authority. All selected candidates, therefore, undergo relevant checks and are expected to adhere to the respective standards and principles. 

Right to select multiple candidates

UNDP reserves the right to select one or more candidates from this vacancy announcement.  We may also retain applications and consider candidates applying to this post for other similar positions with UNDP at the same grade level and with similar job description, experience and educational requirements.

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