Seeking Modern Applications for Real Transformation
Website:
smartngo.org
Job details:
Project: Just Energy Transition Planning in Small and Medium Cities, Haryana
Location: Haryana and Delhi NCR, with field travel
Position type: Full-time / project-based
Experience: 0–2 years. Suitable for a first job.
SMART is looking for an early-career Field, Research and Design Associate to support a new project on just energy transition planning in a small or medium city in Haryana. The project will work with urban local bodies, elected representatives, women’s groups, resident groups, civil society organisations, and state-level institutions to understand local energy realities and co-create practical transition pathways.
This role is suited for someone diligent, curious, organised, and open to learning. Prior expertise in energy is not required, but the person should be willing to think seriously about climate change, renewable energy, local governance, social justice, and how new methods of communication — including games, scenarios, simulations, visual tools, and participatory workshops — can help people understand complex public issues.
The associate will support fieldwork, stakeholder coordination, research, documentation, workshop preparation, and the design of learning and communication tools. They will work closely with the project team to translate field insights into scenarios, simulation materials, reports, and public-facing outputs.
Key responsibilities
● Support field research and stakeholder engagement in the pilot city, including meetings with municipal officials, ward members, women’s groups, RWAs, local NGOs, CSOs, and community representatives.
● Assist in organising consultations, focus group discussions, play-tests, workshops, and simulation sessions.
● Take careful field notes, document conversations, maintain attendance records, track commitments, and prepare meeting summaries.
● Conduct secondary research on energy transition, rooftop solar, urban services, climate risks, public schemes, local governance, and gendered energy realities.
● Help map local stakeholders, governance structures, schemes, institutional responsibilities, and community priorities.
● Support the development of short scenarios, role cards, decision prompts, facilitation materials, simulation assets, and participant worksheets.
● Assist in testing and refining communication tools, games, scenarios, and tabletop simulation formats.
● Support documentation for reports, methodology notes, replication toolkits, project website material, and dissemination outputs.
● Maintain basic project trackers, contact lists, activity logs, deliverable records, and field documentation folders.
● Coordinate with designers, researchers, facilitators, local partners, and government stakeholders as needed.
Required qualities
● Strong interest in learning about energy transition, climate change, cities, governance, and social justice.
● Good writing and documentation skills in English. Working knowledge of Hindi is essential.
● Comfort with fieldwork, travel, community meetings, and speaking to different kinds of stakeholders.
● High attention to detail. The role requires careful note-taking, follow-up, file management, and tracking.
● Openness to being trained in research methods, participatory design, game-based learning, scenario-building, and simulation design.
● Ability to listen carefully, ask clear questions, and translate conversations into usable notes and insights.
● Comfort with ambiguity. This is a design and field-based project, so the work will evolve through research, testing, and iteration.
● Basic digital skills, including Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Excel, and online research.
Preferred but not mandatory
● Prior internship, volunteer, college project, or field exposure in development, climate, governance, media, design, urban studies, sociology, public policy, communications, or related areas.
● Interest in games, storytelling, visual communication, civic technology, community media, or participatory learning.
● Familiarity with Haryana, urban local bodies, community organisations, or public schemes.
What the person will learn
● How local energy transition planning works in practice.
● How to conduct field research and stakeholder consultations.
● How to convert research findings into scenarios, simulations, and communication tools.
● How to work with government, civil society, and community stakeholders.
● How to support public-facing documentation, reports, toolkits, and dissemination.
● How design methods can be used for social change and participatory planning.
Who this role is not for
● This is not a desk-only research job. It involves field travel, coordination, logistics, documentation, and repeated follow-up.
● This is not a purely creative design role. The person must be willing to do careful administrative, research, and documentation work.
● This is not a senior policy role. It is an early-career position for someone who wants to learn by doing.
Ideal candidate
The ideal candidate is a sincere early-career professional who may not yet know the energy sector deeply, but is curious, disciplined, socially aware, and willing to learn. They should be comfortable moving between field conversations, research notes, design workshops, spreadsheets, reports, and practical coordination.
Compensation
Compensation will be in line with market rates for early-career roles in the development, research, and social impact sector, and will be commensurate with the candidate’s skills, experience, and fit for the role.
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