Scientific Officer - French National Institute for Agricultural Research

INRA - French National Institute for Agricultural Research

Paris, France

The French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) is a public institution with more than 10,000 agents across the French territory. Inra is the first European agricultural research institute and produces scientific knowledge and works for economic and social innovation in the areas of food, agriculture and the environment.

FACCE-JPI is a Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food security and Climate Change (www.faccejpi.com) bringing together 21 countries that are committed to construct joint research programming in areas addressing interconnecting challenges. It aims to do that with a strong interdisciplinary research base, encompassing economic and societal aspects with a creative approach towards alignment of national research programmes. 

In December 2012, FACCE-JPI launched a Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) describing the scope of the JPI under 5 core themes. 

According to the SRA, FACCE has already launched 5 joint actions, 5 new ones were started or achieved in 2014 and 3 more have begun in 2015. FACCE-JPI has been partially financed by 2 Coordination and Support Actions from the European Commission.

Position

Fixed term 2 years renewable 
Location: INRA’s Headquarters, 147 rue de l’Université 
75007 Paris France 
Starting as soon as possible

Working environment

FACCE-JPI is managed by an international secretariat partly based in Paris (INRA) with the JPI coordinator, a senior manager and 2 others. This secretariat also includes 7 other partners located in Europe.

The coordinator and her team coordinate all the different joint actions but the management of the joint actions is spread amongst the different members of FACCE-JPI.

The Scientific Officer will be located in Paris INRA headquarters. S/He will act under the direct responsibility of the senior manager.

Responsibilities

The Scientific Officer will ensure the scientific coherence and pertinence of the different FACCE actions that are running or under development. For this, s/he will also contribute to the scientific scoping and development of new actions, in contact with the FACCE Advisory bodies (Scientific Advisory Board, Stakeholder Advisory Board). 

She will also be responsible for the follow up of the portfolio of FACCE-JPI research actions and the dissemination and valorization of research results coming from these actions.

This encompasses:

• Analysis of relevant scientific literature and foresight to contribute to FACCE scoping exercises, preparing various written outputs, e.g. annual reports, background papers, inputs to publications and websites related to these actions;
• Elaboration of the strategy for the dissemination and valorization of scientific results and its implementation to ensure coherence with the FACCE Strategic Research Agenda;
• Execution of tasks and deliverables for FACCE ERA-NETs, including the scoping of additional research and dissemination activities, including joint calls. This may involve the planning and execution of workshops and other events (setting the agenda, identifying the relevant speakers, chairs, minutes etc.) and the participation in relevant workshops; tracking follow-up actions from meetings;
• Organisation of scientific conference(s) related to FACCE themes;
• Contributing to the development, construction and implementation of ongoing or upcoming joint actions included in the Implementation Plan (besides ERA-NETs), including mapping of existing research and participating in the scoping of research topics.

Skills

• Strong scientific knowledge (agriculture/environment) is mandatory;
• Capacity to analyse scientific literature;
• Bilingual English/French;
• Writing skills in English;
• Strong communication skills/tools;
• Ability to work with short deadlines;
• Good team worker;
• Strong interpersonal skills, be able to relate to people of different backgrounds and cultures and be diplomatic;
• Excellent knowledge of Microsoft Office;
• Knowledge on European research projects, especially ERA-NETs would be a plus;
• Experience in project management a plus.

Profile

Doctorate or or equivalent in research. 

Salary: 2300 – 2800€/month brut according to experience.

Starting date: As soon as possible

Postulate by submitting until October 20, a letter accompanied by a CV to Heather McKhannheather.mckhann@paris.inra.fr.