Head of Department Terrestrial Ecology - NIOO-KNAW - Wageningen

The department of Terrestrial Ecology investigates interactions between plants, microbes, and (in)vertebrates, in the soil and aboveground to understand, predict, and mitigate effects of climate change, biodiversity loss and land use change in land-based ecosystems. The approach is conceptual-experimental, and ranges from evolutionary adaptation to community interactions and ecosystem processes. The department’s aim is to enhance fundamental understanding of interactions and processes in nature in order to learn how to promote sustainability of life on Planet Earth. To achieve this, the research of Terrestrial Ecology combines controlled laboratory, greenhouse and field experiments with long-term and large-scale sampling campaigns. This allows to unravel mechanisms underlying species interactions, to study drivers of change in ecological communities and identify leverage points for sustainable land management.

The department of Terrestrial Ecology has a strong national and international position and a diversity of research lines and systems. This allows the department to remain flexible and involved in new research developments. The department consists of five senior scientists, five research assistants and a large and dynamic group of post-docs, PhD candidates, temporary technicians and students

(https://nioo.knaw.nl/en/departments/terrestrial-ecology). The department has access to excellent facilities, ranging from biochemical and molecular laboratories to high quality indoor and outdoor growth facilities, soil ecotrons, long-term databases and experimental field sites, and a broad range of experimental systems.

NIOO aims to have equal representation of woman and men within each functional group at NIOO. Given the current representation, we particularly encourage women to apply.

What you will be doing
As the new head, you will lead the department of Terrestrial Ecology within NIOO and also have your own line of research. You will be part of an enthusiastic team looking for a leader who brings people together in a transparent, inclusive and inspiring way. You will also be member of the NIOO Management team, which requires a broad view of all aspects of NIOO’s activities. NIOO wishes to work closely with ecological research groups at universities and research institutes in the Netherlands and abroad. At NIOO, all heads of department hold a special professorship at a Dutch university.

For your own research, you will further develop your experimental-fundamental research line in a way that is well connected to the departmental research fields and NIOO’s research themes. You will achieve this by initiating, conducting and coordinating independent research, acquiring research funding, publishing in scientific journals, and reaching out to a wider audience. In your role, you will keep sight of making scientific and societal impact with your work.

Within the Terrestrial Ecology department, we strive for variety in research backgrounds, both at the group and on an individual level. We value collaboration and stimulate each other to share and connect knowledge and research within the team, within NIOO, and in connection to the national and international research landscape. You will play an active role in fostering this way of working.

Project Support Officer: SPARKLES & More4Nature - NIOO-KNAW - Wageningen

Are you interested in having a supporting role in a scientific research institute? Do you like working with many different people, with different backgrounds and are you good at organising, communication and switching between tasks? Then the position of project support officer at NIOO-KNAW may be a position for you. In this job you will primarily work on supporting the responsible project manager and principle investigator in two large projects, the NWA project SPARKLES focusing on floating solar and its environmental impacts, and EU project More4Nature focusing on environmental compliance using citizen science. Project work is diverse, ranging from attending and documenting meetings to organising and designing workshops and communicating with various partners within and outside the project consortia. The SPARKLES project falls under the coordination of NIOO-KNAW and involves 17 national partners in the Netherlands. Within SPARKLES you will be responsible for communication with and support of the various project partners in their activities, such as setting up an Early-Career Forum, organising meetings and liaising with the coordinator. The More4Nature project has both national and as international partners with whom you will interact. In More4Nature you will be given a leading role in organising the activities around one of the citizen sciences cases on pollinators, where we attempt to improve the uptake of citizen generated data for environmental compliance. Tasks will include connecting with and maintaining contact with relevant stakeholders in the case, such as the citizen science intiative (‘de vlinderstichting’) and relevant authorities. Activities are supported through a large network of international experts, and translated by the local team into concrete activities for the pollinator case.

We offer an interesting project support officer position for 4-5 days per week (0.8-1.0 fte) for a maximum of 3 years, with ample opportunities to expand your network both within the Netherlands and abroad. Due to the diversity of tasks, you will be developing or consolidating a large transferable skill set. At NIOO-KNAW there is ample opportunity to expand your skills according to your own interests and necessity within projects through courses. You will join a stimulating research environment at the research group AKWA (https://nioo.knaw.nl/en/departments/akwa-aquatic-knowledge-centre-wageningen) in a translational science team that strives to employ team-science approaches in our research and allow members to benefit from each other’s strengths.

Post-doc SPARKLES - NIOO-KNAW - Wageningen

For the NWA project SPARKLES, we are looking for an enthusiastic transdisciplinary post-doctoral researcher. The project aims to bridge the gap between the technological societal and environmental science domains in the context of floating solar, with the aim of nature-inclusive upscaling of this emerging technology. The post-doctoral researcher will contribute to bridging this gap by working with project partners to identify desired futures for floating solar implementation and develop concrete pathways and scenarios towards these futures based on current knowledge from the different disciplines. The post-doctoral researcher is charged with an inventory of existing knowledge and data on floating solar, and subsequent identification of knowledge gaps that hamper the responsible upscaling of floating solar technology such as environmental risks, governance barriers and technological limitations.

We offer an interesting post-doctoral position for 4 days per week (0.8 fte) for 3 years, with ample opportunities to expand your network across different scientific domains and with non-science partners. A stimulating research environment at the research group AKWA (website) in a translational science team that strives to employ team-science approaches in our research and allow members to benefit from each other’s strengths.

Fokcoördinator Proefdierfaciltiteit - Hubrecht Institute - Utrecht

In deze functie ben je verantwoordelijk voor het plannen en monitoren van de fok en kweek van genetisch gemodificeerde muizen, zebravissen en axolotl lijnen. Je houdt de voortgang nauwlettend in de gaten en zorgt voor een nauwkeurige registratie en terugkoppeling van de fok- en kweekgegevens in het door ons ontwikkelde dierregistratiesysteem, iNimal. Daarnaast neem je deel aan de ontwikkeling en het onderhoud van nascholingsprogramma's voor medewerkers en onderzoekers op het gebied van fok, kweek en genetica. Je rapporteert en denkt mee op beleidsniveau, zowel op eigen initiatief als op verzoek.

Een aantal voorbeelden van je taken:

• Systematisch overzicht houden van de aanwezige foklijnen binnen het Hubrecht Instituut en zorgdragen voor goede informatie m.b.t. foklijnen (fokprotocollen, juiste nomenclatuur, invoeren en controle in het iNimal registratiesysteem, website-info);
• Hanteren van efficiënte/verantwoorde fok- en kweeksystemen om de kans op overschotten te verkleinen;
• Deskundige informatie geven aan onderzoekers en medewerkers m.b.t. verschillende fokstrategieën;
• Vraagbaak voor onderzoekers en medewerkers m.b.t. inzetten en bijhouden van complexe fok/kweeksystemen;
• Deelname aan landelijke werkgroepen om CCD en NVWA te adviseren over nieuw beleid.

Research Assistant on Nitrogen Biochemistry - NIOO-KNAW - Wageningen

You will carry out greenhouse experiments with different organic amendments applied in plants, measure greenhouse gases, extract DNA/RNA from rhizosphere, roots and seeds, determine soil chemical analyses, extract metabolites from plants, run qPCR of Nitrogen cycle genes and prepare libraries of N cycle genes for next generation sequencing.