The Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) is a hub for research, training, and innovation headquartered at the University of California, Berkeley. CEGA generates insights that leaders can use to improve policies, programs, and people’s lives. Our academic network includes more than 170 faculty, 65 scholars from low- and middle-income countries, and hundreds of graduate students–from across academic disciplines and across the globe–that produce rigorous evidence about what works to expand education, health, and economic opportunities for people living in poverty. Our mission is to improve the lives of people living in poverty by generating insights and tools for decision-makers backed by rigorous, inclusive, and transparent research.

Professor Manisha Shah, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School, is seeking outstanding applicants for the position of Assistant Specialist (who will essentially act as  a research assistant on her various projects) to start working with her immediately. This person will perform data cleaning, data analysis and background research such as in depth literature reviews and writing up findings. This is a great job for someone thinking about doing a PhD in Economics. 

The duties of this position are complex, and require at least a college degree or equivalent. It is also necessary that the person is familiar with advanced econometric analysis, as well as with programming using the software Stata. Knowledge of LaTeX is also required. 

Some preferred (but not required) qualifications:

• 1-2 years experience conducting empirical research including contributing to data collection and cleaning activities;
• 1-2 years experience and competency with statistical software packages such as STATA, R, and ability to render accurate statistical analysis;
• Ability to read and analyze published papers in economics, and accurately understand their main results;
• Ability to independently investigate solutions to technical and administrative problems;
• Outstanding written and oral communication skills, with the ability to translate complex scientific findings into accessible, non-technical language (via publications or professional presentations);
• Ability to work well with multi-national teams, and communicate effectively with colleagues and faculty. 
• Strong interest in development economics, causal inference in applied microeconometrics, research design and/or program evaluation; 

CEGA values diversity and seeks to include people from under-represented groups on our team, who will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity in higher education. Read our values statement.

The position is currently funded for 6 months full-time or longer if the candidate prefers part-time work, which would be determined at the outset of the appointment. We are also actively fundraising to make the position last longer (if the candidate is interested in this). To apply, include your most recently updated Curriculum Vitae (required), your undergraduate transcript (required), and a cover letter (required).

The UC academic salary scales set the minimum pay determined by rank and step at appointment. See the following table(s) for the current salary scale(s) for this position: [Insert URL for applicable salary scale table(s)]. A reasonable estimate for this position is $65,000–$72,000.

The first date of review for this opening is December 5, 2023 and anticipated start of the position is early-January 2024. Please address inquiries to the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), University of California Berkeley, cega-hr@berkeley.edu

The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, age or protected veteran status. For the complete University of California nondiscrimination and affirmative action policy see http://policy.ucop.edu/doc/4000376/NondiscrimAffirmAct. 

***This call is restricted to current and past PEP-PIERI researchers***

The Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) and the Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP)invites PEP-Policy Impact Evaluation Research Initiative (PIERI) researchers in Africa who are interested in developing their skills in impact evaluation to apply for the CEGA Resident Fellowship Program, to be completed from August to December 2024. The selected researchers will audit courses, develop skills in impact evaluation, access a personalized mentorship program to develop their research ideas, and build their research networks. Resident Fellows will spend the Fall 2024 semester at UC Berkeley in the United States. 

We invite paper and research design submissions that reflect WGAPE’s broad research agenda on the political economy of African development, including ethnic politics, civil conflict and violence, decentralization and democratization, corruption, local governance, public economics, and other related topics. Submissions outside of these areas are very unlikely to be selected regardless of their quality. WGAPE commonly, but not exclusively, selects submissions with a strong focus on fieldwork and quantitative analysis. Graduate students and junior faculty are particularly encouraged to apply. WGAPE particularly encourages submissions from applicants who teach, study or have completed a degree at an African university. 

We invite submissions of papers or research designs. Early-stage papers and research designs will be prioritized for inclusion. Highly polished papers are unlikely to be selected. Research design submissions should describe a fully planned research study on topics relevant to WGAPE, as listed above. A suggested format for these submissions is the Pre-Analysis Plan (please find a template here). It is not necessary to reformat your Pre-Analysis Plan to fit the linked template, but a strong Pre-Analysis Plan will include the elements listed in the template.

Deadline to submit papers is Sunday, December 10, 2023 at 11:59 PM PST.

PacDev 2024 will take place on Saturday, March 9, 2024. It will be hosted by the Stanford King Center on Global Development and will take place in person on the Stanford University campus.

When submitting your paper, you will be asked to include the following:

• Title
• Author and co-author(s)’s name(s)
• Paper abstract
• Paper to upload as pdf file

Full papers and extended abstracts will be reviewed. If your paper is not selected for a presentation, it may be considered for the poster session. 

Some funding for conference travel costs is available for the Principal Investigators of accepted papers who are based in low- and middle-income countries, either through the J-PAL Governance Initiative (for governance-focused papers) or through the Stanford King Center on Global Development (for all other areas). 

Please submit via this site by December 10, 2023. You will be notified of a decision by January 16, 2024.

Call for Papers for the 2024 BITSS Annual Meeting

The Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) will hold its 12th Annual Meeting on Friday, March 8, 2024 at UC Berkeley. The event will be in person only.

Program

The BITSS Annual Meeting brings together actors from academia, scholarly publishing, and policy to share novel research and discuss efforts to improve the credibility of social science by advancing research transparency, reproducibility, rigor, and ethics. The program will also feature presentations of meta-scientific work selected from this Call for Papers, as well as several keynote presentations.

Call for Papers
We invite papers or long abstracts (500-1000 words) in all aspects of meta-science, including but not limited to work that assesses scientific practice, evaluates the credibility of bodies of social science literature, presents new tools or strategies to improve research transparency and reproducibility, or evaluates the effectiveness of existing tools. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Pre-registration and the use of pre-analysis plans;
• Disclosure and transparent reporting;
• Research ethics;
• Replicability and reproducibility;
• Peer review;
• Methods for detecting and reducing publication bias or data mining;
• The intersection of openness and inclusion in science;
• Assessment of the validity or reproducibility of literature;
• Meta-analysis and evidence synthesis;
• Open policy analysis;
• Transparency and reproducibility in COVID-19 or other policy-relevant research.

Eligible projects include completed works, work in progress, and prospective work. All submissions are due by Sunday, December 31, 2023 (11:59 PM Pacific Time). Notifications of acceptance will be sent by the end of January 2024.

Contact
Reach out to Grace Han (grace.han24@berkeley.edu) with any questions about this event.