Position for Scientific/Technical Project Officer – Forest-based sector analyst

Institute for Environment and Sustainability Forest Resources and Climate

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the European Commission’s in-house science service. The Joint Research Centre’s mission is to provide EU policies with independent, evidence-based scientific and technical support throughout the whole policy cycle. Working in close cooperation with policy Directorates-General, the JRC addresses key societal challenges while stimulating innovation through developing new methods, tools and standards, and sharing its know-how with the Member States, the scientific community and international partners.
The vacancy is within the Forest Resources and Climate Unit, (located in Ispra, Italy), which seeks to develop a framework for the assessment of policy options for maintaining and improving sustainable, global, forest management practices, and enhancing forest health and vitality.
We are looking for a researcher with working experience on forest-based sector data analysis (e.g. supply chains, balance sheets, biomass flows) and ready to work in the wider perspective of the bio-economy, seeking to link and integrate with different sectors such as e.g. agriculture, bioenergy, bio-based industries.
The candidate should have a committed, well-organized and dynamic personality, open to explore new fields and actively interact with different disciplines. He/she will carry out technical work focused on the development and analysis of EU and global forest-based sector datasets, and will support the coordination of a large interdisciplinary biomass supply and demand project by liaising with the different teams, organising meetings and drafting project deliverables.

The envisaged work will consist of:

• Further development and analysis of forest-based sector EU and global datasets (e.g. supply chains, woody biomass flows, balance sheets)
• Linking and integration with different sectors of the bio-economy (e.g. forest-based, agriculture, bioenergy, bio-based industries), analysis of competitions and synergies among different biomass uses
• Support the coordination of the biomass assessment study liaising with the different teams contributing, organizing meetings and drafting project deliverables
• Produce scientific publications.

The ideal candidate should have a PhD in forestry, environmental engineering, physics or environmental sciences or related field with emphasis on wood-based products, forest economics and multivariate statistics (or a University degree and 5 years of experience after the university degree).
Excellent writing and presentation skills, with good knowledge of spoken and written English are required. Relevant publications and presentations should be highlighted.
Assets will be considered experience in the management of small teams, experience working with large environmental datasets, excellent analytical and computer skills, modelling experience and hands on experience with scientific programming (e.g. R), Geographical Information Systems.

Indicative duration: 12 months initial contract with possible renewals up to maximum 6 years

For detail and online application to the post use this link

Please note that interested candidates must also apply to the permanent open call for researcher FGIV, in case they are not already in a valid EPSO reserve list.