Senior Research & Strategy Specialist, Office of Indigenous, Local & Global Health

Description

The Office of Indigenous, Local & Global Health in the Cumming School of Medicine invites applications for a Senior Research & Strategy Specialist
. This Full-time Fixed Term position is for approximately 2 years (based on length of grant funding), with the possibility of extension.

Reporting to the Inclusive Governance Lead, the Senior Research and Strategy Specialist works independently and exercises considerable judgment in determining appropriate approaches to complex organizational issues, while ensuring alignment with University priorities, institutional commitments, policies and relevant external considerations. The Specialist serves as a key resource and subject matter expert on inclusive governance and related institutional change processes. The position advises leaders and stakeholders, develops strategic recommendations, directs projects and working groups, and establishes frameworks, processes and practices that support sustainable and effective governance.

Occasional evening and weekend work and limited travel may be required to accommodate community partners, stakeholder availability and engagement activities.

Governance strategy and institutional architecture:

• Leads design of CSM's inclusive-governance strategy and multi-year architecture, co-design and co-implementation with internal and external communities of complex governance models across multiple CSM portfolios; interprets institutional challenges and negotiates adoption of new structures, processes, or services.

Executive decision support and policy advice:

• Serves as the local expert adviser to the Director of Public Policy and Strategic Partnerships on decision legitimacy, community representation, pluralism, consensus-based decision-making, conflict navigation, and long-horizon stewardship; frames options, risks, trade-offs, and implementation conditions and negotiates support. Anticipates objections and shapes major institutional choices.

Community and civil-society governance relationships:

• Co-designs and sustains shared-authority and parallel-paths governance with Indigenous leaders, community and civil-society partners; negotiates durable roles, safeguards, accountability, and routes for influence in CSM decisions.

Deliberation, consensus, and conflict navigation:

• Sets CSM inclusive governance standards for deliberation and consensus-based decision-making, community priority setting and responsiveness; advises on contentious matters, designs high-stakes processes, protects principled dissent, stewards healthy conflict and strong relationships with Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, and ensures authority and follow-through are explicit.

Portfolio, program, and implementation leadership:

• Leads a multi-year portfolio of notable-risk governance initiatives; develops execution strategy, sets priorities, directs resources within mandate, manages cross-unit, cross-sectoral, transdisciplinary, and transcultural interdependencies and risk, and is accountable for adoption and institutional outcomes.

Research, evaluation, and governance intelligence:

• Sets the governance research, co-design, co-implementation, and evaluation agenda; directs program theory, comparative analysis, evidence syntheses, environmental scans, and mixed-method/realist evaluation; oversees interpretation, translation, and dissemination of findings to reshape strategy, standards, resource allocation, and implementation to improve outcomes and processes.

Policy, protocols, and institutional standards:

• Anticipates policy, regulatory, ethical, and reputational issues; establishes faculty governance policies, protocols, standards, and assurance mechanisms aligned…