UNICEF has established a global Office of Research to provide leadership for its strategic research agenda around children.

The Office of Research will provide leadership specifically by:

• initiating, co-financing and producing studies on children and broader topics relevant to the well-being of the world’s most vulnerable children;
  
• nurturing and developing new ideas in theoretical and applied research and policy making;
  
• contributing to building research capacity in the South;
  
• and in supporting the agenda of the Innocenti Research Centre.
  
  

The Office of Research is based in Florence, Italy, with IRC as its dedicated research hub. In February 2011, Mr. Gordon Alexander, a senior staff member who had previously served as Director ad interim of the Innocenti Research Centre (IRC) since mid-2010, was appointed Director of the UNICEF Office of Research. Gordon brings to the position more than 25 years of development experience in South and East Asia, the Middle East and across Europe.

UNICEF’s Office of Research will also foster partnerships, via serving UNICEF country and regional programmes in their research and knowledge needs, and hosting research training activities for colleagues and other interested partners.

The new Office of Research will provide a comprehensive framework for research and knowledge within UNICEF, and for all those working on global children’s issues. Through strengthening of research partnerships with leading academic institutions and development networks, the Office will create greater synergies, and will leverage additional resources and influence in support of efforts towards policy reform in favour of children. It will strengthen the generation of new knowledge and its contribution to the global programme and policy agendas for children’s rights.