<ITC Europe Project Manager>

Department:

Psychology

Effective Date:

December, 2008

Grade:

USG 9

35 hr/wk

Reports to:

Senior Project Manager

General Accountability

This position requires 28 hours per week and is accountable to the Senior Project Manager and the Faculty Investigators who work with the ITC Policy Evaluation Project. The incumbent is responsible for working with the ITC investigator teams to manage the University of Waterloo portion of the ITC Surveys in Germany, France, Netherlands and other ITC projects that may be assigned. The Project Manager will be involved in all aspects of planning, implementing and documenting each wave of the survey in assigned countries. This position also involves making contributions to scientific papers, national reports, and research proposals in collaboration with graduate students identified with each assigned country.

Nature and Scope

The Organization

The ITC Project is an international collaboration of over 70 tobacco control researchers across 17 countries whose mission is to evaluate the behavioural and psychosocial impact of national-level tobacco control policies of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the first-ever international treaty on health, which is currently in its implementation phase. The ITC Project consists of a set of parallel annual cohort surveys of large, probability samples of smokers in 17 countries so far: Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, China, Mexico, Uruguay, France, New Zealand, India, Bangladesh, Brazil and Germany, with other countries in preparation. The resulting ITC database consists of data collected over time from these countries, and is substantial in size and complexity.

Our funding sources include the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the National Cancer Institute/National Institutes of Health (U.S.), Cancer Research UK, National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, the International Development Research Centre, and the Ontario Institute of Cancer Research, as well as other governmental and foundation sources throughout the 17 ITC countries. Investigators and staff at UW work in partnership with their counterparts in the other countries to plan, conduct, and disseminate research.

The staff for the ITC Project at UW are housed in the Department of Psychology and in the Population Health Research Group (PHR) in the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences. PHR has close ties with the Centre for Behavioural Research and Program Evaluation (CBRPE) funded by the Canadian Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute of Canada. PHR is also an active partner in the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit and the Program Training and Consultation Centre of the Ontario Tobacco Strategy.

The ITC Project at UW is directed by Dr. Geoffrey T. Fong (Department of Psychology), who is also the Chief Principal Investigator of the overall ITC Project. The Data Management Centre is directed by Dr. Mary Thompson (Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science). Additional leadership and support is provided by other faculty members and staff, including a Senior Project Manager, Survey Project Managers, Data Analysts, Computer Programmers and Data Managers, Administrative Assistants, and graduate and undergraduate student Research Assistants.

The ITC-France Survey was launched in 2006, with Wave 1 fieldwork taking place in the months of December 2006-January 2007 and Wave 2 fieldwork conducted between September–November 2008. The Principal Investigator of the ITC-France survey is Romain Guignard. ITC-Germany Survey Wave 1 was conducted between July –November 2007. The Principal Investigator of the ITC-Germany team is Martina Potschke-Langer. The ITC-Netherlands Survey Wave 1 was carried out during March and April 2008. Wave 2 was launched in November 2008 and will continue until December 2008. The Principal Investigator of the ITC-Netherlands team is Marc Willemsen. Extensive planning of several months duration precedes each survey wave. Report writing follows each survey wave.

The ITC Project is in the midst of significant growth. Funding for the entire ITC Project is anticipated to continue to increase significantly, with a concomitant increase in personnel. Equally important is that the profile of our work has been increasing and will continue to increase.

Requirements of the Position

The position requires:

Master’s degree in psychology, health studies or other behavior science programs.
Demonstrated experience in the area of tobacco control.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Experience liaising with international academics, public health officials and graduate students is required.
Previous experience with budget development, project management and strategic planning in a university environment
Knowledge of university academic procedures related to seeking ethics approval for research projects involving human subjects
Excellent decision-making, organization and time management skills.
Experience in managing multiple international projects on a simultaneous basis.
Strong writing and analytic skills for contributing to grant proposals, academic papers, national reports and research summaries

Flexible work hours will be required to accommodate deadlines and teleconferences outside of normal work hours.

Ideally, the ITC-Europe Project Manager will also contribute to overall planning and coordination of ITC projects, functioning as an integral part of the ITC-Waterloo team.

Some international travel for may be required.

Statistical Data

As mentioned above, the ITC Project is an international collaboration of over 70 tobacco control researchers across 17 countries, and is continually growing. University of Waterloo personnel involved in the project currently include: 7 faculty members, 13 full-time staff, 6 part-time staff, 6 graduate students and 1 postdoctoral fellow. Present annual funding exceeds 1.5 million dollars and is expected to increase in 2009, with a concomitant increase in personnel.

Specific Accountabilities

Monitor overall preparation and progress of ITC Surveys in France, Germany, and Netherlands including:

Creation and/or revision of surveys, training manuals, consent letters, and other materials for each survey wave. When required, the ITC Europe Project Manager could be involved in the development of surveys in other ITC countries.
Organization of teleconferences with country teams, ensuring meeting notes are prepared and distributed.
Contribute to the writing of technical reports (non-statistical sections of the report) in collaboration with the Data Management Centre (DMC), for each survey wave.
Lead the preparation of the national report of each ITC Europe country, in collaboration with the DMC and ITC country team.
Prepare ethics review applications for each survey wave for timely submission to the UW Office of Research Ethics and respond to recommended changes.
Liaise with ITC Europe country teams regarding ethics clearance, data sharing agreements, and other administrative issues, when required.
Work with the DMC and ITC countries on data quality and management issues.
Document and monitor the survey progress of each wave using the dotProject software system, a project management software package that has been developed and tailored for the use of the ITC Project team.
Participate in the preparation of funder Progress Reports in accordance with the requirements of the granting organization and of the UW Office of Research.
Participate in Project Manager and ITC-DMC weekly meetings and in other relevant ITC activities and initiatives as required.