Grant-Backed Research Evidence and Stage-Gate Consultant

The mandate

The assignment addresses a narrow but consequential problem: funded research milestones and scientific evidence are recorded in different forms, preventing reviewers from judging whether a programme is ready for translation or merely administratively complete. The consultant will deliver a Research Evidence and Translational Gate Pack that joins hypotheses, reproducibility status, grant obligations and next-step decision criteria.

The six-month project starts on 19 October 2026 at three days a week. Mumbai workshops establish scientific ownership and review requirements, while protected remote access supports document and analysis review. The scope covers selected programmes agreed at inception, including a two-programme pilot; it does not encompass a new laboratory system or a retrospective reanalysis of the entire research archive.

Milestone one, on 18 December 2026, comprises a reviewed obligation-to-evidence map and a taxonomy of reproducibility and translational gaps. By 18 February 2027, milestone two delivers the stage-gate rubric, evidence dossiers and pilot reviewer exercises. Milestone three, due 18 April 2027, includes corrected pilot dossiers, a witnessed independent gate review and transfer of the operating guidance to research staff.

Acceptance belongs jointly to the scientific review chair and programme sponsor. Reviewers must be able to trace each gate conclusion to methods, quality records and limitations, distinguish an unmet grant output from a scientifically negative result, and identify the evidence needed for a proposed next step. Two retained programme owners must refresh their dossiers without consultant reconstruction. The pack must preserve uncertainty; scoring alone cannot replace expert scientific judgement.

The sponsor supplies grant terms, approved protocols, analysis documentation, publication status and investigators with time to resolve missing evidence. The consultant will not provide ethics approval, diagnostic validation, clinical trial design or a guarantee of future funding. New experiments and material reanalysis require separate scope approval. Closure is based on accepted artifacts and reviewer reproducibility, not on a programme eventually securing commercial success.

What you will own

• Map funded commitments to scientific evidence, identifying obligations that require specific methods and validation outputs rather than publication or presentation activity alone.
• Classify missing methods, unresolved quality concerns and translational dependencies in dossiers preserving negative findings and the consequences for each proposed next research step.
• Construct stage-gate criteria distinguishing discovery confidence, independent validation and readiness for separately approved development, linking each criterion to explicit evidence rather than generic maturity labels.
• Develop two programme dossiers and test whether reviewers reach explainable conclusions using the same evidence, investigating disagreements before approving the rubric for wider adoption.
• Document reviewer disagreements as scientific questions or evidence gaps rather than forcing artificial consensus through numerical scores, referring methodological disputes to independent qualified reviewers.
• Transfer dossier-refresh guidance, example decisions and a witnessed review procedure to programme owners and the grant manager, requiring independent refresh and defence of a changed dossier.

Candidate qualifications

• Bring twenty-two or more years in scientific research or research-programme leadership with funded genomics or infectious-disease work. Describe an evidence package you personally shaped for a go/no-go review, the scientific uncertainty it exposed and the decision that followed. Administrative grant delivery without substantive scientific judgement is insufficient.
• Demonstrate understanding of sequencing evidence, reproducibility, quality exclusions and the limits of translational inference. Show how you prevented a promising research observation from being described as validated diagnostic or clinical utility. Candidates must recognise where specialist assay, clinical or statistical review is needed rather than silently extending their own authority.
• Evidence experience reconciling grant obligations with actual research progress, including negative findings, revised methods and collaborator delays. Provide a documented example of transparent reporting that preserved funder accountability without compromising scientific integrity. Familiarity with infectious-disease and resistance research is valuable, but exact programme familiarity is not assumed from senior titles.
• Show delivery of accepted research governance artifacts under a bounded project. Explain how you secured investigator participation, controlled confidential or unpublished data and tested retained-user operation. The role requires structured scientific facilitation and rigorous writing; it does not award authorship, promise regulatory acceptance or assume that every programme deserves further investment.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 7 October 2026. Mandate reference PCT-CON-2026-IND-43.