Applications are invited from Pakistani Nationals for appointment of Research Assistant, under the Centre for Disaster Preparedness and Management (CDPM), University of Peshawar and University of Salford, United Kingdom project No. PMRB19 - MOBILISE - EP/P028543/1 entitled “A Collaborative Multi-Agency Platform for Building Resilient Communities”, with the following terms and conditions:

Project Duties: 

The selected applicant will be required to work on the EPSRC funded project from 1st October 2017 till 30th April 2020.  The appointment will be based at the Centre for Disaster Preparedness and Management (CDPM), University of Peshawar. The Research Assistant will be responsible for providing leadership in developing a resilient framework that can be used as the basis for creating a decision support system as well as investigating how multi-agency collaboration could be enhanced through digitally supported collaboration processes in Pakistan. Furthermore, the Research Assistant will be responsible for working with the other researchers in Sri Lanka, Malaysia and the United kingdom and the industry partners of the project in Pakistan to capture the requirements for the technical work packages that are focusing on modeling cascading effect of hazards on critical infrastructure, vulnerability assessment, crowd sourcing and real-time monitoring of disasters using satellite data.

Responsibilities:

• To identify and extend a Resilience Framework that defines the factors that constitute vulnerabilities, resilience capacities and the relationship between them. This framework should allow agencies to develop dynamic resilience measures of physical infrastructure, health, economic, organizational and social capacities.
• To investigate how teamwork among the disaster management agencies in Pakistan can be enhanced through digitally supported collaboration processes. This work should investigate enhancement of current organizational structures and collaboration processes in order to exploit the benefit of the interactive collaborative technologies that will be developed within the project.
• To provide technical requirements for the technical work packages that are focusing on modelling cascading effect of hazards on critical infrastructure, vulnerability assessment, crowd sourcing and real-time monitoring of disasters using satellite data.
• To support the evaluation of the technical platforms developed within the project.
• To coordinate the interaction between the Pakistani research team and the three researchers based in the three partnering countries (Sri Lanka, United Kingdome and Malaysia) to ensure good project interaction in developing the disaster resilience framework, multi-agency collaboration models and the technical platforms.
• To interact with the stakeholders in Pakistan and in the partnering countries, ensuring they are fully engaged with the project to provide requirements and guidance.
• Dissemination of the findings at regional, national and international conferences and events.
• Publicise the research outcome of the projects in high quality journals. 

This role detail is a guide to the work that the Research Assistant initially is required to undertake.  It may change from time to time to meet the requirements of the changing circumstances. 

Knowledge and Skills

• The successful candidate should have demonstrable knowledge of Disaster Management, Risk Management, Technology solutions related to Disaster Management, Reviewing and synthesis of models and frameworks.
• The successful candidate should demonstrate excellent communication skills, good organizational skills, ability to work under own initiative and as part of a team, travelling to project sites, preparing project reports, writing new proposals, and Presenting data and manuscript writing.

Project information: The project duration is 36 months. The above position is purely on temporary basis. The incumbent will be required to sign a bond for entire duration of the project.

Contract duration: The initial appointment will be for six months, which will be extended for further six months based on the satisfactory performance of the applicant and availability of the funds from collaborating University.

How to apply: Applicants are required to submit attested photo copies of Certificates/Academic Testimonials, Experience Certificates if any, CNIC, Domicile, Passport Size Photograph,  CV and motivation letter to the office of the undersigned by October 15, 2017. 

Note: Incomplete application shall not be entertained. Only short listed candidates will be contacted for interview by the selection Committee. The candidates are required to bring along their original certificates and testimonials at the time of interview. No TA/DA will be paid for appearing in the interview. 

Mushtaq Ahmad Jan
Co- Investigator (Project No. PMRB19 - MOBILISE - EP/P028543/1)
Assistant Professor
Centre for Disaster Preparedness and Management
University of Peshawar,
mushtaq@uop.edu.pk