The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is a not-for-profit institution that generates agricultural innovations to meet Africa’s most pressing challenges of hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and natural resource degradation. Working with various partners across sub-Saharan Africa, we improve livelihoods, enhance food and nutrition security, increase employment, and preserve natural resource integrity. IITA is a member of CGIAR, a global agriculture research partnership for a food secure future.
We are recruiting to fill the position below: PostJob Openings
Job Title: Research Assistant - Breeding Data Management
Job ID: IITA/P&C/NRS2026-060
Location: Ibadan, Oyo
Contract: 3-year renewable contract
Duties
Support the Breeding Data Manager in the adoption, implementation, and routine use of the Enterprise Breeding System (EBS) for storing, managing, retrieving, and reporting breeding information.
Assist breeding teams with electronic data capture, including the preparation, testing, and validation of digital field books and data-collection templates.
Curate essential breeding data, including locations, traits, germplasm records, pedigrees, experimental metadata, and germplasm attributes, before loading them into EBS.
Use R scripts or other reproducible tools for data cleaning, validation, duplicate identification, germplasm matching, site curation, data transformation, and routine reporting across breeding datasets.
Execute database queries and extract data into approved templates, reports, dashboards, and other formats based on clearly defined requirements.
Update and maintain Power BI dashboards for monitoring breeding activities, data quality, phenotypic-data completeness, germplasm information, experimental metadata, training activities, and other agreed performance indicators.
Apply institutional and international research data management standards and best practices, including crop ontologies, trait dictionaries, standard phenotyping protocols, data-quality rules, controlled vocabularies, templates, and digital field books.
Maintain appropriate documentation of data-curation activities, data uploads, analytical scripts, database queries, dashboard updates, quality-control results, user-support requests, and completed assignments.
Prepare periodic updates on completed activities, data-quality findings, analytical outputs, dashboard status, user-support needs, system-related challenges, and recommended follow-up actions.
Perform any other job-related duties that may be assigned by the Supervisor.
RequirementsBachelor’s Degree or Higher National Diploma in Data Science, Computer Science, Statistics, Agricultural Science, Plant Breeding, Bioinformatics, Information Technology, or a related discipline with a minimum of two (2) years’ of relevant experience in data management, database support, agricultural research, breeding-data management, or a related field will be an added advantage.
Competencies:The ideal candidate must have:Proficiency in Microsoft Excel, including formulas, pivot tables, data validation, lookups, and data-cleaning functions.
Working knowledge of R or Python for data cleaning, transformation, duplicate identification, descriptive statistics, visualization, and reproducible reporting.
Ability to develop, update, and maintain Power BI dashboards, including data preparation, data modeling, visualization, filtering, and routine refreshes.
Working knowledge of SQL and the ability to query relational databases, extract required information, and populate approved reporting templates.
Ability to perform basic descriptive and exploratory analyses, including frequencies, means, ranges, measures of variability, missing-data assessments, and comparisons across trials, locations, seasons, and breeding pipelines.
Familiarity with electronic data-collection tools, digital field books, standardized templates, trait dictionaries, crop ontologies, and phenotyping protocols.
Familiarity with the Enterprise Breeding System, BreedBase, BrAPI-enabled applications, or other breeding data-management platforms would be an advantage.
Ability to document scripts, data-processing procedures, quality-control checks, dashboard indicators, and user-support activities.
RemunerationWe offer highly competitive salary with equally attractive benefits and excellent working conditions in a pleasant campus environment.
Application Closing Date
2nd October, 2026.
How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:Click Apply Now button to apply
How To Apply
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Note: Only shortlisted candidates are contacted.
