Application closing date 07/11/2019
Faculty / School or Service Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience
Salary £26,723 - £35,856 per annum
Package As one of Coventry's biggest employers, we offer some pretty impressive benefits including an excellent pension scheme and generous holiday allowances.
Job category/type Research
Attachments  

Job description

Organic-PLUS Horticultural Science Research Assistant

Full Time (1 FTE) - Fixed term contract from 1st January 2020 to 31 December 2021 (2 years)

Horticultural Science Research Assistant within the Organic-PLUS project.

The 4.1 million Organic-PLUS (www.organic-plus.net) project is one of the flagship projects of Coventry University's Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) based at Ryton Organic Gardens. Organic-PLUS is funded by the prestigious European Horizon-2020 research and innovation programme. Within this project we are offering a full-time research assistant / post-doc for replicated field trials at the Ryton site. This includes research to investigate alternatives to the use of contentious inputs, specifically: peat in growing media, the use of animal by-products and manure as sources of plant nutrients ('vegan fertilisers') and the use of fossil-fuel derived plastic mulches.

The position will include research in field and greenhouse experiments, laboratory analysis, statistics and modelling work. It will also include contributing to project impact and dissemination within the horticultural industry and engagement with research partners in Europe, and globally.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

• Provide assistance with horticultural science trials in field and greenhouse at the Ryton Garden site or on UK farms (e.g. designing research plots, sowing/planting, plot management, harvesting).
• Data collection in the field (crop performance, pollution dynamics etc.) and crop sampling preparation and handling.
• Assistance with laboratory analysis (soil nutrient extractions, crop quality analysis, pollution dynamics).
• Assistance with data handling and the preparation of project deliverables and high-quality scientific publications.
• Contribute generally to the academic research, teaching and academic citizenship at CAWR.

Enquiries may be addressed to francis.rayns@coventry.ac.uk

Please click here for the Job Description and Person Specification