Background

Global development challenges have become increasingly interrelated, requiring us to take interdisciplinary approaches and seek non-linear solutions. Important development trends like urbanization, climate change, and inequality pose significant challenges on our path to achieve the 2030 agenda of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

These transformations happening against the background of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) are questioning our traditional approaches to development design and delivery.  The innovation brought by 4IR has unveiled the huge potential and opportunities to transform the economies, societal and governance structures and boost our ability to make 2030 Agenda reality.

However, concerns and uncertainties abound regarding the impact of the emergence and penetration of AI, automation, and other technologies on labor market, the nature of work, inequality, economic and political structures, growth models, and how public institutions serve people. Though the scope and scale of these concerns are way beyond the purview of any single entity, the innovative and actionable responses could be generated with collective efforts from governments, international organizations, private sector, civic society, academia/think tanks, and other partners.

Following several years of implementing innovative approaches in development, UNDP in Asia-Pacific has managed to significantly diversify its partner base, develop new skill sets and harness new resources. And as an important development actor, UNDP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific (RBAP) strives to support countries to design effective solutions to tackle complex development challenges and accelerate action on the progress towards achieving the SDGs, through collaborations with changemakers and other stakeholders in the ecosystem to strengthen the network of knowledge, experience, resources and capacities.

Given the context of development challenges and new opportunities in 4IR, UNDP RBAP decided to establish the Regional Innovation Centre (RIC) in Bangkok, Thailand, to spearhead institutionalization of the new way of doing development, provide a safe space to test development solutions through a series of policy experiments, and innovative culture that would help UNDP be on the front-foot in terms of spotting, understanding and integrating new development approaches into its work. The RIC is envisaged to have four core functions with different but linked scope: exploration, experimentation, scaling-up, and capacity building.

The exploration function will be the discovery and sensemaking engine enabling RIC and its clients to identify emerging development trends and probe into the systemic impacts and risks on economies, societies, and livelihoods brought by the radical changes in disruptive technology, social transformation, and environmental challenges. The exploration function will also drive the convening of external partners around joint learning journeys on unknown areas, stimulating a new type of demand for UNDP services.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of work:

1. Horizon scanning of trends and opportunities for the Regional Innovation Centre

• Identify and document emerging development trends, with a particular focus on the edges and “below the radar screen” events and players, and systemically map their impacts on the economy, society, and livelihood;
• Proactively explore and identify the new methods/approaches and frontier knowledge to tackle development challenges against the background of Fourth Industrial Revolution, urbanization, aging society, climate change, etc. to inform RIC’s research and experimentation agenda;
• Contribute to the formulation of the RIC’s service lines and development priorities based on finding from the horizon scanning, systems’ mapping, and demand from clients such as governments and UNDP country offices;

2. Partnership and resource mobilization

• Map potential partners across the public and private sectors with versatile expertise to strengthen RIC’s capacity in service delivery; thereby expanding the distributed network of RIC at the regional and global level;
• Explore the available funding and investment opportunities from multiple sources and attract them for the development of RIC and and implementation of projects;
• Jointly with the UNDP COs and relevant programme teams engage with clients to formulate pipeline of projects responding to their needs and demands for the Regional Innovation Centre’s services;
• Coordinate the partnerships and communicate the activities and progresses of relevant projects with partners.

3. Help foster and outward looking organization culture, driven by curiosity

• Support identification of future skills required for the RIC and its clients, such as governments, country offices, and partners, both for in-house development (RIC and regional innovation i-teams);
• Help embed a culture of horizon scanning and attention for the “edges” in country offices and partner governments. Deliver training on horizon scanning and system mapping;
• Support the implementation of the broader research and innovation agenda.

4. Working out loud

• Share findings from the exploration on future trends, new methodologies/approaches, potential partnership, funding opportunities, and others with UNDP and external partners;
• Proactively use blog posts and social media to share insights, attract partners and help position UNDP at the forefront of the exploration of new trends. Commission content on emerging trends when necessary.

5. Operation of the Bangkok Regional Innovation Centre

• Support the monitoring and evaluation of the projects/initiatives and report the progress and outcomes to the related partners;
• Organize and implement knowledge sharing and network events;
• Support other activities related to the design and operation of the RIC.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables:

The expected outputs and deliverables are closely linked to the project work plan and the scope of work defined in the project document of the Regional Innovation Centre. They will be reviewed and approved upon the delivered quality by the Director of the Regional Innovation Centre. The expected areas of prioritized deliverables are:

1. Ongoing work of exploration throughout the duration of the assignment:

• Produce systemic maps of emerging trends in development both at the regional and country level; identification of outliers and edge cases that point to the future that is already here;
• Review of the new approaches adopted by edge innovators in the ecosystem whose solutions are fit for identified problems;
• Mapping and identification of potential partnership opportunities;
• Review of future skills and capacities relevant for the RIC, governments, country offices, and partners;

2. Partnership and resource mobilization:

• Development of external network with public and private sector partners in the innovation community;
• Maintainance of healthy relationship and communication with partners;
• Guidance on strategic partnership building and engagement for the RIC;

3. Outward looking organizational culture

• Trainings on horizon scanning;
• Regular scans of relevant trends;

4. Working outloud

• Blog posts and other social media content that support the exploration of new areas of interest for the organization;

5. Operation of the RIC

• Organization of the knowledge sharing and networking events related to the RIC work;
• Support the planning and implementation of RIC activities.

Institutional Arrangement:

The Head of Exploration will be directly supervised by the Director of the Bangkok Regional Innovation Centre. S/he is expected to work closely with the programme team and operation team in UNDP related to the initiatives in the RIC and support to advance the broader innovation agenda in UNDP.

Working space, facilities, personnel, project information related to UNDP and the RIC, as well as logistical support will be provided as needed throughout the assignment of the contract.

Duration of the Assignment:

1 December 2018 – 30 November 2019, with maximum 240 days worked (maximum 20 days/month for 12 months)

Duty Station:

Bangkok, Thailand with possible travel for missions

The Head of Exploration in the Regional Innovation Centre is expected to work at UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub and/or Regional Innovation Centre (if different). If there is any travel, the mission would be agreed with supervisor in advance and s/he would be reimbursed for travel costs as in line with UNDP policy.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Treats all people fairly without favouritism.

Technical Competencies:

• Analytic capacity and demonstrated ability to process, analyse and synthesise complex, technical information;
• Proven ability to support the development of high quality knowledge and training materials, and to train technical teams;
• Proven experience in the developing country context and working in different cultural settings.

Communication:

• Communicate effectively in writing to a varied and broad audience in a simple and concise manner.

Professionalism:

• Capable of working in a high pressure environment with sharp and frequent deadlines, managing many tasks simultaneously;
• Excellent analytical and organizational skills.

Teamwork:

• Projects a positive image and is ready to take on a wide range of tasks;
• Focuses on results for the client;
• Welcomes constructive feedback.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree or higher in Business Administration, Public Administration, Economics, Social Science, International Relations, International Development or related fields

Experience:

• A minimum of 7 years of professional experience in development programming or policy and social innovation;
• A minimum of 5 years of professional experience in partnership building and engagement (public and private sector) and resource mobilization;
• Demonstrated capacity in horizon scanning;
• Proven professional knowledge and experience in at least one of the following: Future thinking and Foresight, research, and Systems Mapping;
• Key awareness of key global and regional trends;
• Demonstrated access to networks of edge innovators.

Language:

• Excellent written and spoken English required.

Competencies:

• Demonstrated commitment to UN’s mission, vision and values;
• Demonstrated sound judgement, diplomacy and sensitivity to confidential matters;
• Demonstrated ability to meet deadlines and work under pressure;
• Open mind and eager to learn;
• Innovative forward thinking, good coordination, organizational skills, and teamwork;
• Respect for individuals, gender, and cultural differences.

Price Proposal and Schedule of Payment :

Consultant must submit a financial proposal based on daily fee. Consultant shall quote an “all-inclusive” daily fee for the contract period. IC Time Sheets must be submitted by the Contractor, duly approved by the Individual Contractor’s supervisor, which shall serve as the basis for the payment of fees.

In general, UNDP shall not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources

In the event of unforeseeable travel not anticipated in this TOR, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and the Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

Travel costs shall be reimbursed at actual but not exceeding the quotation from UNDP approved travel agent.  The provided living allowance will not be exceeding UNDP DSA rates. Repatriation travel cost from home to duty station in Bangkok and return shall not be covered by UNDP.

Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on cumulative analysis.

The award of the contract shall be made the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as a) responsive/compliant/acceptable; and b) having received the highest score out of set of weighted technical criteria (70%) and financial criteria (30%).

Technical Criteria for Evaluation (Maximum 70 points)

Criteria A: Education (max 5 points)

Criteria B: Proven professional experience in development programming or policy and social innovation (max 10 points)

Criteria C: Key awareness of key global and regional trends (max 10 points)

Criteria D: Demonstrated capacity in horizon scanning (max 15 points)

Criteria E: Excellent knowledge and experience in research and social innovation approaches such as future thinking and foresight, and systems mapping (max 15 points)

Criteria F: Demonstrated access to networks of edge innovators (max 15 points)

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% of the total technical points would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Financial Criteria for Evaluation (Maximum 30 points)

Financial score shall be computed as a ratio of the proposal being evaluated and the lowest priced

proposal received by UNDP for the assignment.

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals:

Candidates wishing to be considered for this assignment are required to submit the following documents to demonstrate their qualifications. Please group them into one (1) single PDF document/ or one ZIP File as the application only allows to upload maximum one document:

1. Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;
2. Personal CV, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references;
3. Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided;
4. Technical Proposal (maximum two pages), including a) a brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment; and b) a methodology, on how they will approach and complete the assignment.

Incomplete proposals may not be considered. The short listed candidates may be contacted and the successful candidate will be notified.

ANNEXES

Annex I - TOR_ Head of Exploration, Bangkok Regional Innovation Centre

Annex II- General Condition of Contract

Annex III - Offerors Letter to UNDP Confirming Interest and Availability and Financial Proposal

All documents can be downloaded at :http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=50771