PhD Candidate in “prospective LCA of post-harvest...

We are looking for a PhD Candidate to join the Sustainability in Biosystems Program team, based in Torre Marimon (Caldes de Montbui, Barcelona) . We offer the opportunity to be part of an organization with a dynamic, collaborative work environment focused on professional development.

This position will focus on conducting research and innovation activities related to the challenges of assessing novel post-harvest technologies, products and strategies, deploying tools such as Prospective LCA, as well as eco-efficiency and circularity indicators.

The successful candidate will be working on an exciting and stimulating international project on post-harvest technologies applied to fruits and vegetables. Production of fresh fruit and vegetables is a large contributor to EU socio-economics with the production value of fresh fruit and vegetables increasing to a value of close to 71 billion Euro in 2024. However, EU farmers face major business challenges from volatile and low prices, and increasingly unpredictable harvests; while environmental and climate regulations require substantial investments and create significant risks. The HYPOSAVE project will improve farmers’ income in the horticultural value chain by transforming on-farm postharvest operations. It will develop and disseminate modular, state-of-the-art technologies for packaging, storage, and processing of economically important fruit and vegetable crops.

The objectives of the successful candidate will focus on overcoming the challenges of Prospective LCA in agri-food contexts, and to integrate economic and environmental analyses into meaningful eco-efficiency indicators.

Head of the Program: Dr August Bonmatí

Program’s key researcher/s for this position: Dr Angel Avadí

Tasks and Responsibilities:

• Define the prospective LCA framework in collaboration with relevant project partners

• Develop the inventory data collection templates for technology-developing partners and oversee collection of primary LCI data from pilot, demonstration and industrial-scale activities.

• Model and assess the environmental impacts of baseline and improved postharvest/processing scenarios for representative crops and value chains identified in the HYPOSAVE project, using conventional and prospective LCA methods.

• Develop and apply eco-efficiency metrics through integration of LCA and techno-economic results from project partners

• Perform sensitivity, uncertainty and scalability analyses to test the robustness of LCA and eco-efficiency conclusions under different assumptions: scale-up, energy mix, data gaps, market prices, technology performance and regional conditions.

• Translate results into decision-support material for partners and dissemination: dashboards, summary tables, figures, policy/practitioner briefs, scientific manuscripts and inputs to exploitation workshops.

• Interact with public and private partners of the HYPOSAVE project.

• Support knowledge transfer and research dissemination to the sector, relevant public decision makers, large public, and the scientific community.

• Contribute to the teamwork and team-spirit in the Sustainability in Biosystems research program, fostering collaboration and integration activities.

Required qualifications and experience

• Master in Environmental Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Agriculture Sciences, or a related discipline.

• Experience in LCA, LCA software, and agrifood LCI databases.

• Dissemination skills: presentation/communication skills, and technical writing.

• Proficiency in English both spoken and written.

• Strong teamwork skills, ability to adapt to multidisciplinary environments and a focus on professional growth and development.

Desirable requirements

• Research skills: literature review, data analysis, scientific article writing.

• Knowledge of Prospective, Consequential, Input/Output or other LCA variations.

• Skills in using advanced stats software and programming languages (R, Python).

• Familiarity with LCA environment Brightway.

• Experience in developing LCA metrics or other tools that require upscaling and simplification.

• Well-developed interpersonal skills, including ability to work as part of an international team, and capacity to work independently.

• Catalan and Spanish are valued.

Advantages of joining our team:

• Contract: 4 years

• Salary: The financial remuneration for the PhD Candidate contract will be 19,656,35€/gross per annum and for the first and second years. For this third year,