Student Assistant (Consultancy Contract - CTC)

About UN University (UNU)

The United Nations University (UNU) is a global think tank and postgraduate teaching organization within the United Nations System. UNU engages in policy-relevant research, capacity development, and knowledge dissemination in furtherance of the purposes and principles of the United Nations. The work of UNU contributes to solving pressing global problems that are the concern of the United Nations and its Member States.

For the past five decades, UNU has been a source of impartial research on sustainability, human security, and economic development. With hundreds of researchers working at institutes in 12 countries, UNU's expertise spans the full breadth of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, generating policy-relevant knowledge to effect positive global change. UNU collaborates closely with other UN entities and leading research institutions across the globe. For more information, please visit http://unu.edu

United Nations University Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources (UNU Resource Nexus)

UNU Resource Nexus is one of 13 research and training Institutes that comprise the think tanks in the UNU system. UNU Resource Nexus develops strategies to resolve pressing issues in the sustainable use and integrated management of environmental resources through the Resource Nexus - a holistic framework addressing interconnections and trade-offs among environmental resources such as water, soil, material, biota, climate, and space, as well as food, waste, and energy, on land and on sea, that are of concern to the United Nations and its Member States, particularly in developing and emerging economies. Based in Dresden, Germany, the Institute engages in research, capacity development, postgraduate teaching, advanced training, and knowledge dissemination to advance the Resource Nexus. For more information, please visit UNU Resource Nexus | United Nations University.

Project background

The Construction Genome for Circular Systems from the House of No Waste (HØW-GENIUS) project develops a data-driven framework to systematically identify and classify circular construction strategies using the global House of No Waste (HØW) dataset. Through interdisciplinary coding, comparative analysis, and clustering, the project identifies recurring construction features and their combinations to derive circular archetypes and a “construction genome”. These archetypes are mapped onto the Research Areas of the Cluster of Excellence CARE – Climate-Neutral and Resource-Efficient Construction, connecting global design intelligence with materials, construction systems, and spatial design. The resulting taxonomy and reproducible analytical framework will inform CARE projects and demonstrators, future research on implementation and acceptance, a scientific publication, and a policy brief.

Responsibilities

Under the overall authority of the Director of UNU Resource Nexus and the direct supervision of the Advisor Strategic Initiatives, the Contractor will provide support to UNU Resource Nexus by performing the following tasks to support the HØW-GENIUS project:

1. Research and Innovation Development

• Support the curation and structuring of the HØW dataset, including organisation of textual, visual, and metadata from the 225 eligible HØW submissions;
• Conduct a literature review on circular construction, construction/design taxonomies, archetypes, urban/construction genome approaches, and relevant classification methods;
• Support development and documentation of the HØW-GENIUS codebook, including definitions, inclusion/exclusion criteria, coding rules and examples;
• Pilot the coding framework and document ambiguities or emerging categories for discussion with the project team;
• Conduct systematic coding of the selected HØW projects under supervision;
• Support data cleaning, quality assurance, coding consistency checks and preparation of the dataset for quantitative analysis;
• Support the interpretation of clusters and the development of the resulting circular construction archetypes;
• Assist in mapping identified features and archetypes against CARE Research Areas, documenting overlaps, gaps and cross-cutting relationships
• Prepare research documentation to ensure transparency and reproducibility; and
• Support the preparation of figures, tables, supplementary materials and references for the planned scientific publication.

2. Education and Capacity Development

• Support preparation of materials for internal CARE seminars, workshops or other academic exchange formats.

3. Advocacy, Communication and Impact

• Assist with the preparation of the project's policy brief; and
• Support the dissemination of project results through HØW and CARE channels.

4. Governance and Administration

• Maintain orderly research files, datasets, coding records, references and version control; and
• Support scheduling and preparation of meetings

5. Perform other duties as assigned by supervisor.

Competencies

Values:

• Inclusion — take action to create an environment of dignity and respect for all, regardless of age, culture, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, gender expression, geography, grade, language, nationality, racial identity, religion, sex, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, social origin or any other aspect of identity
• Integrity — act ethically, demonstrating the standards of conduct of the United Nations and taking prompt action in case of witnessing unprofessional or unethical behaviour, or any other breach of UN standards
• Humility — demonstrate self-awareness and willingness to learn from others
• Humanity — act according to the purposes of the United Nations: peace, dignity and equality on a healthy planet

Behaviours:

• Connect and collaborate — build positive relationships with others to advance the work of the United Nations and work coherently as One UN
• Analyse and plan — seek out and use data from a wide range of sources to understand problems, inform decision-making, propose evidence-based solutions and plan action
• Deliver results with positive impact — hold oneself and others accountable for delivering results and making a positive difference to the people and causes that the United Nations serves
• Learn and develop — pursue own learning and development and contribute to the learning and development of others
• Adapt and innovate — demonstrate flexibility, agility and the ability to think and act in novel ways