Job Description:
Senior Fellow – Research
Reporting to: Deputy Director – Research and Programs
Vertical: Dispute Resolution
Location: New Delhi
Employment type: Full-time
Compensation: Competitive, commensurate with experience
Role overview
The Senior Fellow will contribute to the TrustBridges ADR Policy Research initiative, with a clear emphasis on rigorous policy research. The role is designed for a policy researcher with deep familiarity with institutional reform, regulatory processes, or think-tank research, who can shape credible, evidence-backed recommendations in the arbitration and dispute resolution space.
The Fellow will set the research agenda, anchor TrustBridges thinking on arbitration reform, and work closely with government stakeholders, arbitral institutions, and industry bodies primarily through consultations, structured dialogue, and institutional partnerships.
Core focus areas
The role will be anchored around three interlinked problem statements:
- PSU arbitration culture, including incentives, risk aversion, decision-making frameworks, and contract management practices.
Enforcement delays, especially post-award judicial intervention and execution bottlenecks.
- Institutional arbitration uptake, including design, trust deficits, and alignment with public sector contracting needs.
Key responsibilities
Research leadership and agenda-setting
- Define and drive the annual and medium-term research agenda for arbitration and dispute resolution reform.
- Lead in-depth legal and policy research on arbitration law, procedure, institutions, and enforcement, with a strong public-law and governance lens.
- Ensure research outputs are analytically rigorous, methodologically sound, and clearly oriented toward reform feasibility.
Policy outputs and intellectual leadership
- Author and oversee high-quality policy papers, consultation submissions, issue briefs, and background notes.
- Translate research findings into clear, implementable recommendations, including options papers and draft frameworks.
- Maintain intellectual coherence across outputs, ensuring TrustBridges work is consistent, credible, and cumulative.
- Contribute to and curate TrustBridges publication pipeline in the dispute resolution domain.
Consultations and institutional engagement
Engage with government departments, PSUs, arbitral institutions, and industry associations
through consultations, closed-door discussions, and structured convenings.- Support legislative or regulatory processes primarily through research inputs and drafting support.
- Help design and participate in TrustBridges dialogue and roundtable formats, ensuring discussions are grounded in research and feed back into outputs.
Team leadership and quality control
Provide intellectual and managerial oversight to the Research Fellow (Legal).
Review drafts for analytical clarity, legal accuracy, and policy relevance.
- Coordinate timelines and priorities across the initiative in alignment with the Deputy Directors broader program goals.
Qualifications
Required
Advanced degree (masters/ Ph.d.) in law, public policy, or related field preferred.
- Approximately 4–6 years of experience in policy research, regulatory institutions, think tanks, international organisations, or adjacent public-law roles.
- Demonstrated publication record, including policy reports, working papers, articles, or other substantive written outputs in law or public policy.
- Strong understanding of India's arbitration and dispute resolution ecosystem, particularly in public-sector or government contracting contexts.
Preferred
- Prior experience working with or within government, regulators, commissions, or institutional reform bodies.
Familiarity with institutional arbitration frameworks and enforcement regimes.
Experience supervising junior researchers or managing research programs.
Core competencies
Policy judgment and analytical depth
Structured, persuasive writing for decision-makers
Comfort navigating complex institutional ecosystems
High ownership with a collaborative working style
Tentative date of joining: 1 April 2026
About TrustBridge Rule of Law Foundation
Our evidence-based research focuses on understanding the underlying causes of our economic policy and attendant rule of law challenges. This approach is necessarily interdisciplinary, integrating legal analysis, economic evaluation and data-driven research, through which we seek to develop actionable solutions rooted in transparency and practicality.
Our work examines the structural drivers of government litigation in India and develops institutional solutions to reduce avoidable disputes. As one of the largest litigants in the countrys courts, the government expends significant public resources on litigation, imposes costs on private counterparties, and contributes to systemic delays that affect the broader justice system.
We focus on two interrelated areas.
First, we analyse the design of government contracts to identify weaknesses in risk allocation, incentive structures, and procedural fairness that deter private sector participation and generate disputes. Our approach studies the full life cycle of public contracts, from tender design and execution to dispute escalation and enforcement, to identify points where better design can prevent conflict.
Second, we examine the role of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and broader dispute governance frameworks within government entities. While well-designed ADR mechanisms can reduce court burdens and improve commercial certainty, their effectiveness depends on institutional design, implementation capacity, and internal decision-making incentives. Our work evaluates how these systems can be strengthened to reduce unnecessary litigation and improve state capacity.