Assistant Professor of Safe and Sustainable by Design

Employment

0.8 – 1.0 FTE

Gross monthly salary

€ 3,974 – € 5,439

Required background

PhD

Organizational unit

Faculty of Science

Application deadline

31 January 2023

Does it sound fascinating to you to set up a novel research line, focusing on methods that support the development of new products, materials and chemicals which are safe and sustainable by design? And are you eager to contribute to our education programmes in biology and environmental science? Then you have a part to play as assistant professor.

As an Assistant Professor you will be expected to establish connections with two existing research lines of the Environmental Science cluster, i.e. chemical risk assessment and life cycle assessment, which should result in an integrated SSbD approach. In collaboration with relevant stakeholders, this approach will be tested on specific chemicals or products.
Research questions that could be addressed include:
(1) What safety and sustainability considerations are relevant when developing a new chemical, material or product?
(2) What model can be used or developed to assess the environmental impacts of a new chemical, material or product?
(3) At what stage(s) of the design process can environmental considerations best be included?
(4) How can environmental impact be weighed against societal benefits?
(5) How can data gaps and uncertainties best be assessed and addressed?

You will strengthen the Institute’s excellent international scientific profile and central mission of contributing to mitigating ecosystem degradation and finding solutions to restore the natural environment. You will explore and establish collaborations within RIBES, the Faculty of Science and RU and with other national and international institutes in order to develop an integrated SSbD approach.

Further, you will contribute to the Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes in biology and environmental science (coordination, teaching, further development, etc.). You will participate in general courses of the BSc or MSc curriculum, and you will supervise students during their BSc and MSc internships.

As an Assistant Professor, you should have the ambition to become a leading and inspiring academic scientist. You will contribute to management tasks within the Environmental Science cluster and you should also have the ambition to create societal impact.
The research, education and management duties of academic staff at RIBES typically have a 40-40-20% distribution.

• You have successfully completed a PhD in the field of life cycle assessment and/or chemical risk assessment or a closely related field, preferably followed by several years of research experience in the field.
• You have a proven ability to integrate scientific knowledge and insights from different disciplines and thereby contribute to safety and/or sustainability assessments.
• You have a university teaching qualification (UTQ) or experience in teaching and student supervision plus the ambition to obtain a UTQ.
• You have a demonstrable ability to acquire project funding.
• You have strong communication skills and a proven ability to collaborate with scientists from other disciplines and a variety of stakeholders.
• You have proven social, organisational and management skills and the willingness to take up managerial tasks within the Environmental Science cluster.
• You have the ambition to contribute to a more sustainable society.

The Radboud Institute for Biological and Environmental Sciences  (RIBES) aims to perform world-leading research in order to understand the response of the natural environment to human impact. RIBES is working on the overarching research mission “Towards Healthy Ecosystems”, with four focus areas: I. Macronutrients and chemicals of emerging concern, II. Physical conditions: understanding responses and adaptation mechanism to stressors, III. Biodiversity decline and recovery of ecological communities, and IV. Mitigation of greenhouse gases. RIBES aims to contribute to mitigating ecosystem degradation and find solutions to restore the natural environment with the knowledge developed. RIBES is nationally and internationally unique as its research encompasses three major groups of organisms (microorganisms, plants and animals) and spans nearly all levels of biological organisation. The institute is organised in three clusters: the Ecology and Physiology cluster, the Environmental Science cluster, and the Microbiology cluster.

The mission of the Environmental Science  (ES) cluster of RIBES is to provide high-quality scientific knowledge that can help the world move towards greater sustainability. To achieve this, we aim to understand and predict the impact of anthropogenic pressures on ecosystems and humans from the landscape to the global scale and use the knowledge obtained to identify solutions for a more sustainable society. We develop predictive process-based or statistical models capable of quantifying the impacts of human pressures on the environment and apply these to explore and identify broad-scale solutions for the environmental sustainability challenges the world faces today.

We want to get the best out of science, others and ourselves. Why? Because this is what the world around us desperately needs. Leading research and education make an indispensable contribution to a healthy, free world with equal opportunities for all. This is what unites the more than 24,000 students and 5,600 employees at Radboud University. And this requires even more talent, collaboration and lifelong learning. You have a part to play!

• It concerns an employment for 0.8 – 1.0 FTE.
• The gross monthly salary amounts to a minimum of €3,974 and a maximum of €5,439 based on a 38-hour working week, depending on previous education and number of years of relevant work experience (salary scale 11 ).
• At the start of your employment you will be appointed as Assistant Professor level 2 (salary scale 11 ) on a career track towards promotion to Assistant Professor level 1 (salary scale, 12  maximum € 6,181). The performance criteria and duration of the career track will be tailored to your background and track record.
• You will receive 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus.
• You will be employed on the basis of a temporary contract for 18 months with the prospect of a permanent contract in case of a positive evaluation of your performance.
• You will be able to use our Dual Career and Family Care Services . Our Dual Career and Family Care Officer can assist you with family-related support, help your partner or spouse prepare for the local labour market, provide customized support in their search for employment and help your family settle in Nijmegen.
• Working for us means getting extra days off. In case of full-time employment, you can choose between 30 or 41  days of annual leave instead of the legally allotted 20.

Work and science require good employment practices. This is reflected in Radboud University’s primary and secondary employment conditions . You can make arrangements for the best possible work-life balance with flexible working hours, various leave arrangements and working from home. You are also able to compose part of your employment conditions yourself, for example, exchange income for extra leave days and receive a reimbursement for your sports subscription. And of course, we offer a good pension plan. You are given plenty of room and responsibility to develop your talents and realise your ambitions. Therefore, we provide various training and development schemes.

For questions about the position, please contact Ad Ragas, head of Environmental Science cluster at  [email protected] .  Alternatively, you can contact Paul Scheepers, staff member of Environmental Science cluster at  [email protected] .

You can apply until 31 January 2023, exclusively using the link below. Kindly address your application to Ad Ragas. Please fill in the application form and attach the following documents:

• A letter of motivation.
• Your CV.
• A research statement, including a description of how your research will align with the research programme of the Environmental Science cluster and RIBES (at most 2 pages).
• A teaching statement, including your long-term vision on teaching and education innovation (at most 2 pages).
• A leadership statement on supervision, management and community efforts (e.g. diversity programmes) (at most 1 page).

You would preferably begin employment as soon as possible. You would preferably begin employment as soon as possible. The first round of online interviews will take place in the third week of February. The second round of interviews will take place in the first week of March.
We can imagine you’re curious about our application procedure . It offers a rough outline of what you can expect during the application process, how we handle your personal data and how we deal with internal and external candidates.