Technical research assistant

Do you excel in ensuring the seamless operation of cutting-edge Geo-Information facilities? Are you ready to play a pivotal role in advancing educational excellence and contributing to ground-breaking research endeavours? If yes, then this may be the perfect opportunity for you!

The Laboratory of Geo Information Science and Remote Sensing at Wageningen University is looking for a Technical Research Assistant. In this role, you will be at the forefront of ensuring the technological backbone of our Geo-Information facilities operates seamlessly, contributing significantly to both educational excellence and cutting-edge research endeavours. We expect that the candidate can support the following tasks and activities:

• maintenance, planning of reservations, and quality control of instruments of the Geo-Information facilities of GRS (LiDAR, drones, camera’s, spectrometers, GNSS etc.);
• support and technical coordination of field campaigns with these instruments for education and research;
• support educational activities in computer practicals in periods with fewer field campaigns and fieldwork activities carried out by students;
• documentation of field protocols for acquisition with field instruments;
• prepare and maintain processing workflows for raw data acquired with field instruments. Significant pre-processing and delivery of Level-2 datasets;
• manage storage and back-up of datasets acquired with field instruments.

We expect that the candidate has experience with the following activities or is interested in acquiring proficiency in those. You have:

• a professional BSc (HBO), or MBO degree with at least five years of significant experience, in Geo-information Science, Engineering, Geodesy, Computer Science or related study, and experience with open-source software solutions as used in a geo-IT environment and in geospatial research;
• experience in small-scale (electro) technical maintenance of the geo-information instruments;
• proficiency in programming skills for handling and processing of data acquired with the geo-information instruments.

Finally, as we are working in an education and research environment we ask:

• good communication and presentation skills in Dutch and English;
• affinity for and interest in helping our educational mission;
• pro-active and precise in maintenance tasks;
• flexible and willing to work abroad for period of up to 3 weeks.

Wageningen University & Research offers excellent terms of employment . A few highlights from our Collective Labour Agreement include:

• partially paid parental leave;
• working hours that can be discussed and arranged so that they allow for the best possible work-life balance;
• the option to accrue additional holiday hours by working more;
• there is a strong focus on vitality, and you can make use of the sports facilities available on campus for a small fee;
• a fixed December bonus of 8.3%;
• excellent pension scheme.

In addition to these first-rate employee benefits, you will of course receive a good salary. Depending on your experience, we offer a competitive gross salary of between €3.377 and € 4.640 for a full-time working week of 38 hours, in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreements for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU) (scale 9). Initially, we offer you a one-year contract with a maximum of 12 months extension, which can then be a permanent contract if you perform well. Of course, we would be happy to discuss this with you if you have any questions.

There are plenty of options for personal initiative in a learning environment, and we provide excellent training opportunities. We are offering a unique position in an international environment with a pleasant and open working atmosphere.

You are going to work at the greenest and most innovative campus in Holland, and at a university that has been chosen as the “ Best University ” in the Netherlands for the 18th consecutive time.

Coming from abroad
Wageningen University & Research is the university and research centre for life sciences. The themes we deal with are relevant to everyone around the world and Wageningen, therefore, has a large international community and a lot to offer to international employees.

Our team of advisors on Dutch immigration procedures will help you with the visa application procedures for yourself and, if applicable, for your family.

Feeling welcome also has everything to do with being well informed. Wageningen University & Research's International Community page contains practical information about what we can do to support international employees and students coming to Wageningen. Furthermore, we can assist you with any additional advice and information about helping your partner to find a job, housing, schooling. For instance, under the "30% rule", certain categories of international staff can receive tax exemption on approximately 30% of their gross salary.

To learn more about this position, please contact prof. dr. Lammert Kooistra, by email: [email protected] .

For questions about the procedure, please contact Noorien Abbas, corporate recruiter, by email: [email protected]

Do you want to apply?
You can apply directly using the apply button on the vacancy page on our website which will allow us to process your personal information with your approval. Please upload your motivation letter and an updated CV. No other documents are required at this stage.

This vacancy will be listed up to and including 8 January 2024. We hope to schedule the first interviews soon after the closing date.

Equal opportunities
Wageningen University & Research (WUR) employs a large number of people with very different backgrounds and qualities, who inspire and motivate each other. We want every talent to feel at home in our organisation and be offered the same career opportunities. We therefore especially welcome applications from people who are underrepresented at WUR. A good example of how WUR deals with inclusiveness can be read on the page working at WUR with a functional impairment .

Wageningen University & Research
The mission of Wageningen University & Research is “To explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life”. Under the banner Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen University and the specialised research institutes of the Wageningen Research Foundation have joined forces in contributing to finding solutions to important questions in the domain of healthy food and living environment.

With its roughly 30 branch­es, 7,200 employees (6,400 fte) and 13,200 students and over 150.000 participants to WUR’s Life Long Learning, Wageningen University & Research is one of the leading organisations in its domain. The unique Wageningen approach lies in its integrated approach to issues and the collaboration between different disciplines.. An integrated approach to problems and the cooperation between various disciplines are at the heart of Wageningen’s unique approach. WUR has been named Best Employer in the Education category for 2019-2020.

These are the points our employees list as good reasons to come work at WUR: read the 5 reasons to come work at WUR

About GRS
The Laboratory of Geo-Information Science and Remote Sensing (GRS) is part of the Department of Environmental Sciences. The Department’s fundamental research and education concerns our living environment: nature, landscape, land use, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, water management, and various competing claims on space.

The mission of our laboratory is to advance spatial competences for a sustainable world through research and education. The education that conveys this mission is offered in a variety of BSc programmes of Wageningen University and concentrated in the MSc Geo-information Science of Wageningen University and the joint MSc in Geographical Information Management and Applications (GIMA). The research of the laboratory has a fundamental character with a clear link to the mission of Wageningen University to provide Science for Impact. Our research agenda is represented in five themes:

In recent years the laboratory received excellent review in both research and education and is very international in terms of staff and student composition.

We will recruit for the vacancy ourselves, so no employment agencies please. However, sharing in your network is appreciated.