Research Associate - System 3 - Centre for Social and Behaviour Change

Ashoka; Bengaluru; Presencial; INR 500.000 - 700.000; Jornada completa

Descripción de la vacante

A Research Associate, System 3 at the Centre for Social and Behaviour Change, Ashoka University, Bengaluru, will support lab studies, data handling, and collaboration with pre-doctoral fellows. The role emphasizes quantitative thinking, programming, and hands-on learning in a start-up research environment.

Ideal candidates have a bachelor’s degree with quantitative ability and at least one year of paid experience in research or AI-enabled projects, with a strong willingness to learn and

Formación

• Bachelor’s degree with quantitative ability
• At least 1 year of paid, full-time work experience; research or AI experience preferred
• Willingness to learn quantitative methods and programming with lab support

Responsabilidades

• Set up and run studies with participants, collect data accurately
• Recruit participants and manage scheduling to ensure retention
• Clean, organize and analyze data under supervision; document steps for reproducibility
• Assist in preparing study materials, figures and drafts for senior researchers
• Contribute to organizing public talks and discussions to engage the public

Conocimientos

Python data analysis

R data analysis

Stata/ Matlab

AI tools for research

Educación

Bachelor’s degree with quantitative ability

Herramientas

Qualtrics

SurveyCTO

oTree

z-Tree

Descripción del empleo

Research Associate - System 3 - Centre for Social and Behaviour Change Centre for Social and Behaviour Change Bangalore, Bangalore, Bangalore, India 1 - 3 Years

Job Description

Job Title: Research Associate, System 3

Reports to: A Pre-Doctoral Fellow, with a System 3 Principal Investigator as overall mentor

Experience (in years): At least 1 year of paid, full-time work experience

Nature of work: Full-time, fixed term of 12 months, with potential for renewal

About the Centre for Social and Behaviour Change

At the Centre for Social and Behaviour Change (CSBC), we bring together behavioural scientists, policy experts, and researchers to develop novel insights and catalyse action. We partner with governments, non-profits, and corporations to embed behavioural science in programme design, creating solutions that work in practice and at scale. Established by Ashoka University with Gates Foundation support, we make development more people-centric through real-world applications of behavioural science. In recent years, CSBC researchers have contributed 25 peer-reviewed articles to top journals, advancing the nation’s behavioural evidence base and catalysing collaborations with leading institutions such as the University of Chicago, Yale School of Management, the University of Michigan, the Collegio Carlo Alberto, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. For more information, please visit https://csbc.org.in/.

About System 3

System 3 is a new research lab under the Centre for Social and Behaviour Change (CSBC). It will rest on two pillars.

Basic science, from India: Most of what the world knows about how people think, trust and decide comes from a few narrow populations. India, with its range of languages, identities and institutions, is where those claims can be properly tested. We will run foundational, curiosity-driven research on cognition, judgement and behaviour, to learn which findings travel and which were only ever local. We take inspiration from the MIT Media Lab: open, accessible and joyful in the pursuit of credible science.

AI and Behaviour: System 1 and System 2 describe the fast and slow thinking of the human mind, both shaped by the social and institutional worlds around us. System 3 will ask what happens to that mind in the age of AI. How do we learn, judge, trust and decide when intelligent machines are part of everyday life? What do we gain, and what do we quietly give away? This will be a major focus of our research agenda.

The two pillars will reinforce each other. Understanding the human mind in all its diversity will let us study how AI changes it.

We are a small team, early in our journey, based in Bengaluru. We are looking for people who like building something from scratch, who take ownership without waiting to be asked, and who are as comfortable rolling up their sleeves as thinking big.

Role and Responsibilities

System 3 is hiring Research Associates to be the engine of the lab. The Associates will run studies, work with data and help bring the lab’s research to life, learning how rigorous behavioural science is done from the Pre-Doctoral Fellows they work with every day. The role suits someone who is curious about research and about how people think and decide, and who wants to learn by doing it in a small, ambitious team. Reporting to a Pre-Doctoral Fellow, the Associates will be part of the lab’s core team.

What the Research Associates will do:

• Run studies
  - Set up experiment sessions, run them with participants and collect data carefully and accurately.
  - Keep materials, schedules and records organised so that every study runs smoothly.
  
• Bring people into the lab
  - Support the recruiting participants, scheduling sessions, and keeping participants coming back.
  - Reach out to the wider public to invite them to take part in research.
  
• Work with data
  - Clean, organise and analyse data under guidance, using AI tools where useful and checking what they produce.
  - Document every step so that others can check the work and build on it.
  
• Support the science
  - Search for and summarise research papers.
  - Help prepare study materials, figures and drafts for the Pre-Doc Fellows and Principal Investigators.
  
• Open the lab to the curious
  - Help organise public lectures and discussions on behavioural and cognitive science.
  - Welcome anyone who is curious, whether or not they have a science background.

Qualifications

• A bachelor’s degree in any discipline that shows quantitative ability or strong analytical reasoning, for example philosophy, a pure science, computer science, economics or engineering. Candidates without a quantitative background should be willing to learn basic statistics and programming, with support from the lab.
• At least 1 year of paid, full-time work experience in any field is required. Experience in research, AI or an applied behavioural science field is preferred.

Technical Skills

Required

• Data analysis in Python, R, Stata or Matlab, or the ability to pick it up quickly.
• Using agentic AI tools for research (coding, analysis, literature work), and protecting the team from hallucinations.
• Associates work with different Principal Investigators and projects, so we do not expect any one person to have every skill below. Strong candidates will have the Required skills plus some of the Desirable skills for social sciences or cognitive sciences or AI.

Any area

• Data collection through Qualtrics, SurveyCTO, oTree, z-Tree or similar.
• Familiarity with regression and basic statistics.
• Adapting tasks and measures across languages and populations (translation, back-translation).

Economics and sociology projects

• Experience with survey or field data, and regression analysis of it.
• Familiarity with running economic or social experiments.

Psychology and cognitive science projects

• Programming behavioural experiments in PsychoPy, jsPsych or lab.js, including online studies (for example Pavlovia).
• Familiarity with cognitive tasks and measures (reaction time, accuracy, memory or attention tasks).

Professional Skills

• A structured, analytical thinker with a working understanding of causal reasoning, such as why correlation is not causation and why control groups matter.
• Curiosity about how people think and decide. Candidates who have not formally studied human behaviour should be very curious about it.
• Eagerness to learn, and openness to guidance and feedback from the Pre-Doc Fellows.
• Careful, organised and reliable, with attention to detail.
• Comfort with reaching out to people and encouraging them to take part in research, or a real willingness to learn how.
• A preference for flat teams, where a good idea counts for more than a title.
• Willingness to do whatever a research start-up needs, from running sessions to setting up a room for a public talk.

ABOUT ASHOKA UNIVERSITY

ASHOKA UNIVERSITY is India's premier interdisciplinary higher education and research-focused institution, offering world‑class opportunities in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Established in 2014 by leaders, thinkers, academics, and philanthropists from diverse fields, it operates on a unique model of collective philanthropy, integrating exemplary governance standards with cutting‑edge pedagogy and a faculty body of international acclaim. Today, the University has a community of 3000+ students and operates seven Schools imparting industry‑oriented education, professional skills, and values‑based learning to prepare students for global careers. The University espouses principles of inclusivity and diversity, having more than 57% women, 4% international scholars, 100+ students with disabilities, and over 47% students on scholarships. Since its inception, Rs 723 crores have been awarded in scholarships with over 2,000 students receiving full‑tuition fee waivers cumulatively and 5400+ students being supported through scholarships. In addition, nearly 5500 of Ashoka's alumni are pursuing careers of their choice in reputed organisations and leading universities across the world. Ashoka University continues to reaffirm its commitment to building an inclusive institution of excellence in teaching and research, nurturing responsible leaders for India and the world. In 2025, Ashoka University was honoured with the 'University of the Year (Emerging)' award at the 20th FICCI Higher Education Summit 2025 - one of India's notable industry platforms celebrating excellence in academia and innovation. The University also secured the first position in the Indian Institutional Ranking Framework (IIRF) 2025 in two prestigious categories. The Ashoka advantage will continue to equip its students with the skills to see the big picture - to critically analyse, question, interpret, craft compelling arguments, and find sustainable solutions. It is a collective effort towards nation‑building. This is where tomorrow's leaders are born. Check out the Ashoka Website to know more : https://www.ashoka.edu.in/