UNDP – UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME 

Junior Professional Officer Programme (JPO) Chiffre Nr. 2025-2-46 

I. Position Information 

Title: JPO R&D Acceleration Coordinator 

Agency: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)  

Department: Digital AI and Innovation Hub  

Bureau: BPPS 

Country and Duty Station: New York, USA 

Duration and Type of Assignment: 2 years with possibility of extension for another year. The extension of appointment is subject to yearly review concerning priorities, availability of funds, and satisfactory performance 

Please note that for participants of the JPO-Programme two years work experience are mandatory! Relevant work experience can be counted. In order to assess the eligibility of the candidates, we review the relevant experience acquired after obtaining the first university degree (usually bachelor’s degree).  

II. Background and Organizational Context 

The UNDP Junior Professional Officer (JPO) Programme: 

The UNDP JPO Programme equips outstanding young leaders with the skills and experience required to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and make a positive difference in the world. As a pathway into the world of development, the programme offers young professionals’ excellent exposure to multilateral cooperation and sustainable development while providing a valuable entry point into the UN system. During their assignments, JPOs benefit from the guidance of experienced UNDP staff members and are actively involved in supporting the design and implementation of UNDP’s programs within UNDP’s headquarters, regional or country offices. 

Job Purpose: 

As a co-venture with BMZ and the Qatar Fund for Development, UNDP launched the Accelerator Lab Network in 2019 to radically enhance its ability to learn, adapt, and respond to the world’s most complex development challenges. Envisioned as “a shot of steroids” to UNDP’s innovation capacity, the Labs grew into a globally distributed capability for exploration, experimentation, and actionable learning embedded across 115 countries.  

BMZ’s investment has paid off. The Accelerator labs were evaluated as a success in its mid-term evaluation, and have inspired the creation of UNDP’s first distributed Research and Development function for Sustainable Development. Externally, the network has served as a magnet for partners, was awarded Apolitical’s Public Service Team of the Year in 2019, covered in the MIT Sloan Review (Summer 2020), analyzed as a Harvard Business School Case Study (Fall 2022) and depicted in For Tomorrow, an award-winning documentary on grassroots sustainability innovations available on Amazon Prime.  

Built on the recognition that sustainable development is a complex and non-linear journey with no universal best practices or predefined solutions the Labs have acted as a dynamic R&D function within Country Offices and creating actionable networked intelligence to drive SDG acceleration. Over the past five years, they have tested and scaled local innovations, created new value propositions, connected diverse knowledge actors, and helped UNDP evolve in real time. Through this, the Labs have accelerated the organization’s ability to deliver impact in an increasingly uncertain world.  

This post comes in at a crucial moment: the ambition is no longer just to test new approaches but to evolve into a globally distributed, Next Practices capability for the SDGs, integral to UNDP’s institutional infrastructure. The intent is to integrate tools and processes via the newly established UNDP’s Digital, AI, and Innovation Hub and support the new Strategic Plan.  

The R&D Acceleration Coordinator will support UNDP to assess the network’s contributions, document what has been learned, and generate tools and analysis to inform the institutionalization of capabilities across UNDP, in Country Offices where the intelligence is most vibrant and as the organization consolidates its new Digital, AI, and Innovation Hub at the global level. 

III. Position Purpose 

The Digital, AI and Innovation Hub seeks a highly qualified R&D Acceleration Coordinator to play a pivotal role in embedding the capabilities, methodologies, and insights of the UNDP Accelerator Lab Network into the organization’s core architecture. This position is central to transforming the Accelerator Labs from a standalone initiative into a distributed, institutionalized R&D function that connects with the portfolio approach and UNDP’s digital transformation strategy to drive continuous learning, experimentation, and thematic renewal across UNDP. 

The incumbent will develop tools and analyses and organize events to ensure that systems thinking, grassroots intelligence, data innovation, and open R&D practices as legacies of the Accelerator Lab Network are integrated into UNDP’s policies, operations, and service offers. By coordinating across global teams—including BPPS, Regional Bureaus, Country Offices, and the Digital, AI and Innovation Hub—the R&D Acceleration Coordinator will help sustain and scale the innovation legacy of the Accelerator Labs, even as they evolve in structure and form as driver of development intelligence and organizational transformation. 

IV. Key Duties and Accountabilities 

Objectives 

The main objectives of this assignment are: 

1. To support integration objectives of the Digital, AI and Innovation Hub. 

2. To curate thematic and methodologic insights from the Accelerator Lab Network and turn them into practical evidence to evolve UNDP’s offer to drive SDG acceleration. 

3. To support evaluation, knowledge management and learning design of the Digital, AI and Innovation Hub. 

Scope of Work 

The R&D Acceleration Coordinator will undertake the following tasks: 

Policy Integration and Institutionalization 

• Develop tools and analyses to support alignment of Accelerator Lab methodologies—such as experimentation, situational analysis, and thematic exploration—with UNDP’s Programme and Operations Policies and Procedures (POPP). 

• Coordinate efforts of the Digital, AI and Innovation Hub to ensure policy guidance and revisions are owned and sustained within UNDP’s organizational architecture. 

• Support the creation of toolkits that embed R&D practices into portfolios and digital transformation efforts.  

Operationalizing Thematic Renewal and Investment Pipelines 

• Use the SDG Commons to identify and diffuse next-generation practices from Country Offices and Labs. 

• Work with UNDP thematic experts to translate exploratory work into investable proposals aligned with SDG acceleration and partner demand. 

• Develop resource mobilization plans and pipeline-ready funding proposals for new positions based on evidence from experiments globally. 

Embedding R&D as a Development Service 

• Support Regional teams to use the R&D Service Offer Catalogue, GPN roster to prototype service packages. 

• Support CO innovation capabilities (Accelerator Labs) as embedded services within Country Offices to support programme design, resource mobilization, and government engagement. 

• Support Portfolio development where needed. 

Use cases for Knowledge Infrastructure 

• Use AI to further evolve the use cases of the SDG Innovation Commons.  

• Support socialization inside and outside UNDP of the R&D practice guide and ensure continuity of learning assets. 

Support Evaluation Management Responses 

• Coordinate efforts across the Digital AI and Innovation hub, BPPS, and Evaluation Office to integrate Accelerator Lab evaluation findings into embedding strategies. 

• Develop tools to monitor implementation of the management response and action plan tied to evidence-based recommendations. 

Under the general guidance and supervision of the Accelerator Lab Team Leader, the Junior Professional Officer is expected to deliver the following deliverables: 

1. Updated guidance notes and toolkits. 

2. R&D based pipeline-ready proposals. 

3. Increased use of the R&D Service Offer Catalogue and prototype packages. 

4. Increase in use of the R&D practice guide and consolidated learning assets. 

5. Monitoring tools for management evaluation response and action plans. 

Supervision – Under the of Accelerator Lab Team Leader 

As part of the UNDP JPO programme overall framework, the JPO will benefit from the following supervision modalities: 

• Structured guidance provided by the supervisor, especially in the beginning of the assignment, with the purpose of gradually increasing the responsibilities of the JPO. 

• Establishment of a work plan, with clear key results. 

• Effective supervision through knowledge sharing and performance/development feedback throughout the assignment. 

• Easy access to the supervisor. 

• Participation in Unit/Team/Office meetings to ensure integration and operational effectiveness. 

• Guidance and advice in relation to learning and training opportunities within the field of expertise. 

• Completion of the yearly UNDP Performance Management Document (PMD) 

• If more than one supervisor; clear agreement of the roles and responsibilities between the relevant parties. 

V. Recruitment Qualifications 

Education: 

Master’s Degree in design, social innovation, public policy, organizational development, international development, or related field is required. 

Experience, Knowledge and Skills: 

Required: 

• Minimum 2 years of relevant experience working in social innovation and/or international development. 

• Experience modelling, building capacity for and incentivizing new ways of working. 

• Strong analytical and research skills: qualitative and quantitative. 

• Experience in knowledge management, design or organizational development . 

Desired: 

• Experience embedding innovation in large organizations. 

• Familiarity with UNDP programme cycles and innovation frameworks. 

• Excellent writing, analytical, and verbal communication skills in English. 

• Basic familiarity with LLM use. 

• Visual thinking skills. 

Language: 

• Fluency in written and spoken English is required. 

• Working knowledge of French is desirable. 

Expected Demonstration of Competencies – Competency Levels: 

Achieve Results: 

LEVEL 1: Plans and monitors own work, pays attention to details, delivers quality by deadline. 

Think Innovatively: 

LEVEL 2: Offer new ideas/open to new approaches, demonstrate systemic/integrated thinking. 

Learn Continuously 

LEVEL 1: Open minded and curious, shares knowledge, learns from mistakes, asks for feedback.  

Adapt with Agility  

LEVEL 1: Adapts to change, constructively handles ambiguity/uncertainty, is flexible. 

Act with Determination 

LEVEL 2: Able to persevere and deal with multiple sources of pressure simultaneously. 

Engage and Partner 

LEVEL 2: Is facilitator/integrator, bring people together, build/maintain coalitions/partnerships. 

Enable Diversity and Inclusion 

LEVEL 2: Facilitate conversations to bridge differences, considers in decision making. 

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies 

Thematic Area/ Name: Business Management/ Strategic Thinking: Ability to develop effective strategies and prioritized plans in line with UNDPs objectives, based on the systemic analysis of challenges, potential risks, and opportunities, linking the vision to reality on the ground, and creating tangible solutions. 

Thematic Area/ Name: Business Development/ Knowledge Generation: Ability to research and turn information into useful knowledge, relevant for context, or responsive to a stated need. 

Thematic Area/ Name: Business Management/ Partnership Management: Ability to identify funding sources, match funding needs (programmes/projects/initiatives) with funding opportunities, and establish a plan to meet funding requirements. 

Thematic Area/ Name: Business Management/ Project Management: Ability to plan, prioritize and control resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific goals. 

Thematic Area/ Name: Information Management and Technology/ Data Management and Analytics: Knowledge in data management, data sciences, ability to structure data, develop dashboard and visualization. Design data warehouses, data lakes or data platforms concepts. Familiarity with Machine leaning natural language processing or generation and the use of artificial intelligence to support predictive analytics. 

Thematic Area/ Name: Digital and Innovation/ Data Analysis: Ability to extract, analyze and visualize data (including Real-Time Data) to form meaningful insights and aid effective decision making. 

Thematic Area/ Name: Business Management/ Working with Evidence and Data: Ability to inspect, cleanse, transform and model data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions and supporting decision-making. 

Thematic Area/ Name: External Relations & Advocacy/ Resource Mobilization: Ability to identify funding sources, match funding needs (programmes/projects/initiatives) with funding opportunities and establish a plan to meet funding requirements. 

Thematic Area/ Name: Digital & Innovation/ Data privacy and digital ethics: Knowledge of ethical usage of digital technology (e.g., AI, robotics, automation) and data. Ability to assess ethical implications when using, combining or sharing data, when building or implementing AI systems, and when advising on robotization and automation etc. Ability to design privacy protocols to ensure data is protected and used for legitimate purposes without unnecessary privacy risks. 

VI Keywords 

• Organizational development 

• collective intelligence 

• knowledge curation 

• portfolio approach 

• AI 

VII. Training and Learning 

As part of the UNDP JPO programme overall framework, the JPO will benefit from the following training and learning opportunities: 

• Use of yearly JPO duty-related travel and training allocation (DTTA), as per the online DTTA guide. 

• Other training and learning opportunities, as presented in the UNDP JPO Orientation Programme. 

In addition, the JPO will benefit from the following specific training and learning modalities/opportunities in the receiving office: Online Talent Development Centre 

Bitte senden Sie Ihre JPO-Bewerbung direkt an das Büro Führungskräfte zu Internationalen Organisationen (BFIO) unter Angabe der Chiffre Nr. 2025-46 auf dem Bewerbungsbogen. 

Alle Informationen finden Sie unter www.bfio.de