Postdoctoral Research Associate

University of Exeter Business School
Exeter - United Kingdom
S: Starting salary from £31,411

This Horizon Europe funded full-time post is available from 9 January 2023 on a fixed term basis for 22 months.

This position could be available part-time from 0.5 FTE up to full-time.

The Business School wishes to recruit a Postdoctoral Research Associate to work alongside Professor Alex Inman to deliver a new project: Food Provision Through Sustainable Farming Systems And Value Chains (VISIONARY) see https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/horizon-cl6-2021-farm2fork-01-08. This multi-million euro 4 year project is one of only three successful project applications funded under the Horizon Europe Framework Programme HORIZON-CL6-2021-FARM2FORK-01-08 'Uncovering lock-ins and levers to encourage farmers to move to and stay in sustainable, climate-neutral and biodiversity-friendly farming systems: from experiments to systemic mechanisms'

The successful applicant will play a central role in establishing transdisciplinary multi-stakeholder Science Policy Interfaces (SPIs) with project partners across Europe and undertaking experimental research within each SPI. A variety of discrete choice, stated preference and field experiment methods will be designed and deployed to explore behaviour change options within farmer and consumer populations across the food supply chain. Mental models will also be developed to better understand how key actors conceptualise the food system and their role within it (how they frame the problem, ability and capacity for change).

VISIONARY aims to facilitate change by identifying what factors underlie the path dependencies and 'lock-ins' in current unsustainable food systems, and showing how these can be overcome. The project will learn from existing initiatives that are still niche and small-scale, and investigate the barriers to scaling up and out. By means of experiments, the project will generate data on the same sustainability transition in different contexts (countries and value chains). For selected and promising food system transitions, the project will tackle both the policy and business shifts that are necessary to make a change.

The post will include working with the PI to design, deliver and publish primary research outputs, engage with a variety of external stakeholders and assist with project management tasks as required. It is envisaged this post will be particularly well suited to individuals comfortable working with members of the business community and policy makers who will comprise a large proportion of the SPIs.

Job summary