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Job Application:

Life Cycle Assessment of innovative European farms transitioning towards climate-neutrality

→ Do you want to contribute to the transition to climate-neutral farming?

→ We propose a fixed term position in a dynamic research environment.

Context

ClieNFarms (www.clienfarms.eu) is an Innovation Action project funded by the European Commission to support the European Green Deal. It aims to co-develop and scale up systemic, locally relevant solutions to foster climate-neutral and climate-resilient farms across Europe.

INRAE, the French Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment aims to build solutions for multi-performing agriculture, quality food and sustainable management of resources and ecosystems. The INRAE SAS environmental assessment research unit in Rennes uses environmental assessment methods (in particular Life Cycle Assessment, LCA), to contribute to the development of sustainable agricultural systems.

Activities

Your job will be to assess the environmental impacts of 20 demonstration farms across Europe using LCA. These farms represent a diversity of production systems (annual crops, grapes, olives, dairy, beef, pigs, sheep) and geographical situations across Europe, plus one in New-Zealand. 

You will use the INRAE MEANS InOut and Simapro software tools to assess pollutant emissions and subsequent environmental impacts. You will use the Simeos-AMG simulation tool to assess long-term changes in soil organic carbon.

You will work closely with colleagues of the INRAE MEANS platform and the ClieNFarms project to assess the quality of input data. You will calculate and interpret the LCA results of the demonstration farms, propose improvement options, relate results to findings in the scientific literature, and present the results in project reports and a publication for an international scientific journal.

Requirements

  • You hold an MSc or PhD with a background in agricultural or environmental science, and have experience in LCA of agricultural systems. 
  • You have excellent written and spoken skills in English. 
  • You have good computer skills in general, you are comfortable with models and processing large amounts of data. You have knowledge of agricultural systems.
  • You are rigorous, work independently and responsibly, but enjoy teamwork. 

The appointment is for a 16-month period, with a provisional start date of January – February 2023. Candidates can apply by sending a letter outlining their motivations, their CV and letters of recommendation (optional) before December 12, 2022 to Hayo van der Werf (hayo.van-der-werf@inrae.fr) and Julie Auberger (julie.auberger@inrae.fr).