Role Scope 

The OSINT Research Associate is an individual contributor role that develops foundational proficiency in open-source intelligence collection, monitoring, and analysis workflows. The role supports end-to-end intelligence lifecycle activities, including identifying, gathering, verifying, and structuring publicly available information under guidance, adhering strictly to compliance standards, operational security protocols, and established research guidelines, while escalating anomalies or novel findings. 

The role emphasizes building strong investigative literacy and analytical rigor, mastering core OSINT tools and methodologies, and collaborating across cross-functional research and intelligence teams. Associates contribute to event validation, source quality assessments, and routine problem-solving, follow established research standards, and participate in continuous workflow optimization and the adoption of advanced search tooling and AI-enabled intelligence workflows. 

What You’ll Do (Key Responsibilities) 

Operational Delivery 

• Monitor and collect key political and global security events across assigned countries, ensuring comprehensive coverage of critical developments. 

• Utilize licensed platforms and OSINT methodologies to systematically identify and extract relevant intelligence events on a global scale. 

• Assess and verify the authenticity, credibility, and reliability of sources before integrating events into the intelligence database. 

• Draft and publish well-structured, analytical intelligence summaries that accurately capture key event details. 

• Ensure precise attribution of collected events, maintaining consistency in event categorization and metadata tagging. 

• Conduct quality control checks on all collected information, identifying inconsistencies, and ensuring adherence to data accuracy standards. 

• Continuously identify and integrate new sources, with a focus on primary, region-specific, and high-reliability intelligence channels. 

• Collaborate to contextualize terrorism data into wider security risk frameworks and client deliverables. 

• Support research initiatives and provide analytical assistance for special projects as required by the business. 

• Strictly adhere to standard operating procedures (SOPs) for data collection, categorization, and processing, ensuring compliance with organizational guidelines. 

• Maintain and update documentation for assigned countries, ensuring accuracy and completeness in the intelligence collection plan. 

• Support operations across flexible shifts, including on public holidays, any other S&P Global provided holidays, or on weekends (during emergency crises like protests/riots/or any other political violence in the assigned region/country) 

Process Excellence 

• Maintain audit-ready events and follow established handover protocols. 

• Adhere consistently to governance standards, controls, and documentation requirements. 

• Apply quality feedback consistently to reduce repeat errors and follow the first-time correct approach.  

• Participate in automation- and AI-assisted workflows and small pilots under governance, using approved tools and prompts to support efficiency, exception handling, and quality improvement. 

Stakeholder Management 

• Coordinate with immediate team members to clarify requirements and resolve day-to-day data issues. 

• Share timely updates with senior team members on production volumes, issues, and delays. 

• Participate in team stand-ups, huddles, and calibration sessions to align priorities, quality expectations, and standards. 

How Impact Will Be Measured (Success Metrics) 

• Percentage of tasks completed within defined SLAs for quality, volume, and timeliness. 

• First-pass data quality outcomes (accuracy and completeness) and reduction in repeat errors. 

• Adherence to SOPs and documentation standards, reflected in clean audits and zero critical deviations. 

• Responsiveness to feedback and learning velocity, including effective task management during crisis periods within assigned countries (regular/cover). 

For This Role You'll Need to Have (Skills & Competencies)  

Technical Skills 

• Familiarity with structured/unstructured data formats (Excel, PDFs, news, etc). 

• Awareness of automation and GenAI tools; ability to follow prescribed usage patterns. 

• Exposure to OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence) tools  

Functional Skills 

• Basic understanding of geopolitics, international relations, or domain concepts. 

• Ability to perform data entry, tagging, risk analysis, geocoding, and basic enrichment accurately. 

• Capability to read and interpret simple source materials (e.g., think tank reports, news). 

• Ability to quickly learn and work with enterprise data capture tools, workflow systems, and ticketing platforms. 

Behavioral Skills 

• Strong attention to detail and operational discipline; balance speed with accuracy. 

• Learning agility and openness to feedback and coaching. 

• Clear communication and collaboration during team interaction.  

• Accountability and ownership for assigned geographies (regular/cover) with proactive risk identification. 

• Comfort working with repetitive tasks while maintaining accuracy. 

• Proactive & growth mindset in improving the product and operations. 

• Demonstrates strong learning agility and digital acumen, with a continuous learning mindset and the ability to adapt to evolving tools and technologies. 

Preferred Education & Experience 

• 0–2 years of relevant experience in data operations, research, or related roles (internships included). 

Key Interfaces & Stakeholders 

• Data Research & Operations team members (Associates, Specialists) 

• Data Quality and Data Stewards teams for issue assessment and resolution 

• Process Leads / Front-Line Managers and internal support teams (via workflow or ticketing tools)