CIAT Senior Scientist (Soils, Water and Landscapes) Job in Kenya

Senior Scientist: Soils, Water and Landscapes

The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) – a member of the CGIAR Consortium – develops technologies, innovative methods, and new knowledge that better enable farmers, especially smallholders, to make agriculture competitive and profitable as well as sustainable and resilient. 

Headquartered near Cali, Colombia, CIAT conducts research for development in tropical regions of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. www.ciat.cgiar.org
 

CGIAR is a global research partnership for a food secure future. Its science is carried out by the 15 research centers of the CGIAR Consortium in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations.

The CGIAR has a portfolio of global research programs to implement a recently agreed strategy of research for development.  

Key areas within the strategy and the portfolio are farming systems intensification, reducing risk for vulnerable populations, and sustainable management of natural resources in landscapes to benefit the poor.
 

The Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute (TSBF) joined CIAT in 2001, and since then has grown and evolved to become one of the three research areas of CIAT. 

Taking forward the original focus of TSBF, scientists at CIAT are working at the interface between agriculture and ecology to achieve durable food security, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, but with a global agenda. 

CIAT’s  soils research is extremely well placed to contribute in the reformed CGIAR.  

To build up the momentum of this work, CIAT is recruiting new members for its soils research team.
 

CIAT is looking for a science innovator to work on agriculture – environment interactions, restoring degraded landscapes and sustainable intensification at multiple scales.  

S/he will be dedicated to ensuring the impact of our work on poverty alleviation and creating positive change in a variety of development contexts.  

The work will have a focus on bottom up approaches to critical issues in landscapes such as land degradation, soil fertility decline, water scarcity and loss of biodiversity that result in reduced resilience of communities and trade offs amongst various objectives. 

This new position comes at a time of great opportunity within the CGIAR for more integrated and impact oriented research for development, and offers wide scope for development. 

Initial responsibility will be to lead areas of work including application of advanced soil information to achieve sustainable natural resource management from field to landscapes, and integrate field level soil, agronomic and social information into landscape scale understanding of ecosystem services and trade offs. 

Responsibility will also include contributing to planning, management and implementation of research within the framework of the CGIAR Research Program Water, Land and Ecosystems.

The position is posted in Nairobi, with primary responsibility in sub-Saharan Africa, but includes interaction and collaboration with scientists in Latin America and SE Asia, and in the other Research Areas of CIAT, particularly Decision and Policy Analysis.

Role and Responsibilities

• Creatively lead a group of researchers in the area of agroecosystem intensification, restoring degraded landscapes, ecosystem services and trade off analysis.
• Lead interdisciplinary research for development projects toward successful outcomes.
• Proactively engage in opportunities to create impact from CIAT’s work, including participating in on-going platforms and discussions with policy and decision makers.
• Maintain an international reputation through contributions to international scientific meetings and publication of research papers in peer reviewed journals.
• Contribute to program strategy development and integration.
• Represent the institute at a variety of fora with a variety of partners.
• Maintain relationships with donors to develop successful proposals that align with and strengthen CIAT’s research and the Consortium Research Programs.
• Support communications efforts of the Research Area and CIAT.

Requirements

• A PhD in Soil Science, Agricultural Ecology, Agronomy or related fields.
• At least 10 years research for development experience and strong publication record.
• Expertise in methods and approaches for landscape scale research and analysis including ecosystem services approaches, trade off analysis and modeling.
• Well versed in trends in agriculture – ecosystem nexus issues and debates.
• Ability to creatively integrate social, livelihoods and biophysical research results to develop solutions to stubborn development problems.
• Demonstrated ability to think strategically and generate research ideas and successful proposals.
• Demonstrated success engaging with partners, donors and decision makers.
• Very capable of managing professional relationships in a complex working environment.
• Ability to manage large multi-country projects.
• Ability to manage and mentor more junior researchers to produce high quality outputs.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English.
• Willingness to live in Kenya and travel widely.

Terms of employment
 

The Senior Scientist will report to the Director of the Soils Research Area. 

S/he will be based in Nairobi, Kenya and the contract will be for an initial 2 year period, subject to a probation period of six (6) months. 

CIAT offers internationally competitive salary and benefits packages. 

CIAT is an equal opportunity employer, and strives for staff diversity in gender and nationality.

Female candidates from Latin America, Africa, and Asia are encouraged to apply.
 

Applications
 

Applicants are invited to send a cover letter illustrating their suitability for the above position against the listed qualifications, competencies, skills together with a detailed curriculum vitae, including names and addresses of three referees knowledgeable about the candidate’s professional qualifications and work experience. 

All correspondence should be addressed to the CIAT Human Resources Office to Catalina Montoya (c.m.ruiz@cgiar.org) and Alice Kareri (a.kareri@cgiar.org) and should clearly indicate “Soils, Water and Landscapes” on their application letters or email submissions.
   
Closing date for applications: 15 June 2012