Do you want to use your passion to scientifically address challenges in precision agriculture developments and applications? Do you have a flair for interacting and serving with farmers and other stakeholders? Are you interested to contribute to sustainable, data-driven farming systems, well embedded in society, and bring science and technology to farms, e.g. by means of apps? Then read on!

The new farming management concepts we are working on will be important vehicles to increase the profitability of farming, increase food security and safety, look for nature inclusive opportunities and reduce the impact of agriculture on the environment.

You will contribute to develop and implement science-based systems to support farmers' decision making and we help stakeholders with their development of new precision farming systems. These systems necessarily consist of agronomic knowledge encoded as decision rules; an ICT infrastructure (https://farmmaps.eu/en) to collect, manage, process, and responsively govern data; sensing systems and equipment capable of precise application of inputs (this includes automated machines and robotics). The selected candidate will work in this field within a multidisciplinary team of scientists and programmers in strong interactions with stakeholders.

You are an experienced professional or someone who would like to develop to such. You are keen to integrate your interest and experience in the development of our apps and decision support systems for e.g. variable rate application of fertilizers and crop protection agents. Your skills, ambitions, enthusiasm and positive attitude in life will contribute to our research at WUR.

• A scientist with an appropriate MSc in plant sciences, agrotechnology, biosystems engineering, data and model handling or a related field.
• You have good knowledge of agronomy, crop production systems, and precision farming.
• You have already some experience with databases, GIS and computer programming.
• You are keen to collaborate with farmers, companies and other stakeholders, and to develop such collaborations by means of acquistions.
• You want to contribute to team efforts in new developments in our research, e.g. to the development of farming systems as a whole, and to app development in particular.
• You are happy to share your experience and insights with the scientific world and colleagues, and are curious to learn from them.
• You are result oriented, show analytical capacities and are able to handle data, and to publish in scientific journals.
• You speak and write in Dutch and English fluently.

If you recognise yourself in our ambitions, but do not yet meet all requirements, we would like to encourage you to respond and convince us that you are able to reach the expected skills within reasonable time.

You will be part of a dynamic team and business unit of the plant science group, embedded in a unique organization with an outstanding reputation - Wageningen University & Research. We exchange and collaborate among others, based on the values of sound science, trust, transparency, and togetherness. We are curious to get to know you!

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

• working hours that can be discussed and arranged so that they allow for the best possible work-life balance;
• the option to accrue additional compensation hours by working more, up to 40 hours per week;
• sabbatical leave, study leave, and partially paid parental leave;
• 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 4%;
• excellent pension scheme.

In addition to these first-rate employee benefits, you will of course receive a good salary. We offer, depending on your experience, a competitive gross salary of between € 2.836,- and € 4.624,-,- (scale 10) for a full working week of 36 hours in accordance with the Collective Labor Agreement for Wageningen Research. You also have the opportunity to work part-time (e.g. 32 hours per week). Evaluation on job performance is every year and a positive outcome will continue in a permanent position after 2-3 years.

Wageningen University & Research encourages internal advancement opportunities and mobility with an internal recruitment policy. There are plenty of options for personal initiative in a learning environment, and we provide excellent training opportunities. We are offering a multi-faceted position in an international environment with a pleasant and open working atmosphere.

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. Applicants from abroad moving to the Netherlands may qualify for a special tax relief, known as the 30% ruling. 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, and other issues.

Wageningen University & Research

Wageningen University & Research
The mission of Wageningen University and 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, 6.800 employees and 12.900 students, Wageningen University & Research is one of the leading organisations in its domain. 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

Agrosystems Research
Agrosystems Research is part of the Plant Sciences Group of Wageningen University & Research. We advise the public and the private sector and provide training in areas of our expertise. We are a community of scientists working on safe and sustainable agricultural systems, well embedded in society and contributing to the quality of life. We work in a demand driven contract research organization, where stakeholders' needs are explored and served. Acquiring new research projects is an intrinsic part of our work.

Our core business is understanding and quantifying the soil-crop-environment continuum at both the process level and the ecosystem level, which we assess with mixed methodologies like integrated assessments, the analysis of big data, precision agriculture, sensing, and robotics. We do this by means of experimental design and computer modelling, ICT, on-farm testing and implementation in interaction with stakeholders. Our research and knowledge-intensive advisory systems are based on agronomy and ecology as our main scientific disciplines, which are increasingly complemented by social science research. Our vision of agroecology is to integrate agronomy, technological and social research in interaction with stakeholders. This requires an integrated, inter- and transdisciplinary perspective for the study and development of food systems.

Our objective is to raise the productivity of agriculture in a sustainable and socially acceptable manner and increase the resilience of systems to deliver food security, feed, fuel, fiber and other services under current and future climate and resource availability.

As guiding principles we work synergistically in teams, like to express and base our opinions on sound science and operate self-conscientiously in our networks to have impact, and to attract and serve our clients' needs. We strongly believe in diversity and inclusiveness to strengthen our teams, their modus operandi and their impact.

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