Institute for Economics and Peace

The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) is a non-profit research organisation dedicated to shifting the world’s focus to peace as a positive, achievable, and tangible measure of human well-being and progress.

Rated in 2014 and 2015 as one of the world’s most impactful think tanks based on size and a think tank to watch by the University of Pennsylvania’s Global Go To Think Tank Index, the Institute is looking to expand its research team. 

IEP achieves its goals by developing new conceptual frameworks to define peacefulness; providing metrics for measurement; uncovering the relationship between peace, business and prosperity, and by promoting a better understanding of the cultural, economic and political factors that drive peacefulness. The research outputs of the Institute have been featured in leading media internationally, from the New York Times, the Guardian, FoxNews, the Economist, Huffington Post, Washington Post, CNN, and BBC and are widely cited by intergovernmental organisations and in academia. 

Current and previous partners and consulting clients include numerous leading organisations internationally including the United Nations Development Programme, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Economist Intelligence Unit, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) the Earth Institute at Columbia University, the Club de Madrid, and the Commonwealth Secretariat. The Institute is a non-partisan and not-for-profit organisation with offices in Sydney, the Hague, Mexico City and New York. The Data Analysis/Scientist would join a research team composed of eight other dedicated research staff. 

This exciting opportunity is for a Data Analyst/Programmer. It offers the successful candidate hands-on experience to practically apply data science to research in better measuring and understanding the way societies work throughout the world. It is an ideal position for early graduates in a bachelors of IT, software engineering, computer/data science or related degree. 

Junior Data Analyst/Programmer Role 

The successful candidate will have experience in software engineering and database management. They will also have experience with web design. S/he will be able to offer technical support such as database design, formatting, storage design and implementation, and automated process scripts for a team of researchers. The successful applicant will also assist IEP’s communication team with web page design and maintenance. Data visualisation skills would be a strong advantage. 

The role will contribute research on a wide range of topics related to the Global Peace Index, economics, development studies and peace and conflict studies. Ideal candidates will have completed a degree in IT, computer science or software engineering.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Build, maintain and enhance IEP’s databases
• Collect, assemble, and maintain datasets for quantitative social research using R and MySQL
• Provide data management, code validation and version control to small teams working on a variety of projects
• Visualise data in interesting and efficient ways
• Design and implement new features and functionality
• Establishing and guiding the database architecture
• Ensuring high-performance and availability, and managing all technical aspects of the Wordpress CMS 

Required Skills and Background

1. The ideal candidate will have a degree in IT, computer science or software engineering.
2. Practical experience with R
3. Will be able to design and manage SQL databases
4. Experience with version control online tools (Github, Subversion, etc)
5. Knowledge of good software development practices (documentation, version control etc)
6. Knowledge of a range of operating systems (Linux, CentOS, Windows, etc)
7. Good understanding of front-end technologies, including HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery
8. Experience building user interfaces for websites and/or web applications
9. Ability to convert comprehensive layout and wireframes into working pages for Wordpress 
10. Experience in CMS especially Wordpress  

Desirable Skills and Experience

1. Experience in building dashboards/data visualisations
2. Experience in managing databases for “big data”
3. Experience in cloud computing/data management (Amazon RDS, AWS, etc)
4. Web design experience (HTML/PHP). Data visualisation experience is highly desirable (D3, Tableau, etc)
5. Additional studies/degrees in economics, mathematics, statistics, business or humanities would be advantageous

Desired personal qualities

• Excellent attention to detail and fast learner
• Ability to meet multiple deadlines in a fast-paced work environment
• Ability to work well with others
• Interested in peace and social science research

Location: The IEP headquarters is based in St. Leonards, Sydney.

Hours: This is a full time position.

Remuneration: Total remuneration package commensurate with experience.