Research Fellow in Sustainable Food Systems - Fixed term contract until 26/02/27

Closing date: 23:59 hours GMT on Thursday 29th February 2024

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About Us 

The Centre for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Surrey seeks to appoint a Research Fellow to work on an international innovation project called “FoodCLIC – Integrated urban food policies: developing sustainability co-benefits, spatial linkages, social inclusion and sectoral connections to transform food systems in city-regions”, which is funded by the European Commission (2022-2027, Horizon Europe programme). 

Coordinated by Vrije University of Amsterdam, the project brings together a Consortium of 27 partners, including eight municipalities from across Europe (Aarhus, Denmark; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Berlin, Germany;  Barcelona, Spain; Brasov, Romania; Budapest, Hungary; Capannori, Italy; and Lisbon, Portugal), where Living Labs have been established to train Food Policy Networks and develop integrated food policies that deliver sustainability co-benefits, strengthen spatial linkages, enhance social inclusion and connect food with other policy sectors. 

A high-level engagement and dissemination strategy has been adopted to sustain the urban food policies developed during the project, maximize their visibility and support their replicability across the EU and Africa. 

About the role

This post will collect data to analyse Food Policy Networks from around the world and understand their capacity to support and initiate change in the urban food environment and food system. This will involve:

• Comparative analysis of findings and lessons learned in the partner and extension city-regions to identify key elements that influence the capacity of Food policy Networks to intervene in the food environment, the scope for formulating evidence-based and integrated food policies and food-sensitive planning frameworks and the overall contribution of FoodCLIC's activities towards healthier, sustainable and resilient food systems.
• Contributing to the coordination of a work package on "mutual learning, networking, evidence-based guidelines and tools" and to the implementation of the project's communication, dissemination and replications plans.
• Supporting the development of high-quality outputs from the project, perform day-to-day administrative work connected with the project and attend international project meetings and, where relevant, contribute to organise them.

About you

• An established expertise and proven portfolio of research and/or relevant industrial experience within one or more of the following research fields; food networks, food policy and governance, sustainable food systems.
• Awareness of current research in specialist field.
• Proven ability to publish in high-quality journals.
• An effective and persuasive communication.
• Ability to focus and motivate team members.

How to apply

Please upload your CV and a covering letter with your application.

Start date ideally April or asap afterwards. Interviews to be held between the 18th - 22nd March 2024.

This is a fixed-term contract available to the end of the project (February 2027).

Prospective applicants are encouraged to contact Professor Roberta Sonnino ([email protected] ) for further information.

Further details:   

Please note, it is University Policy to offer a starting salary equivalent to Level 3.6 (£34,980) to successful applicants who have been awarded, but are yet to receive, their PhD certificate. Once the original PhD certificate has been submitted to the local HR Department, the salary will be increased to Level 4.1 (£36,024).