Pharmaceuticals are essential for human well-being. However, the production and use of pharmaceuticals can harm the environment, for instance through the use of solvents and the emission of greenhouse gases in the production phase, and the emission of pharmaceutical residues in the use phase. As a postdoctoral researcher, you will focus on the development, support and implementation of a methodology to determine the sustainability profile of pharmaceuticals.
The EU TransPharm project aims to support the transition towards the production and use of more sustainable pharmaceuticals. TransPharm will develop a new methodology to assess the sustainability of pharmaceuticals over their entire life cycle, building upon existing approaches of lifecycle assessment (LCA) and chemical risk assessment. The methodology will integrate sustainability aspects related to the design, production and distribution of pharmaceuticals with those related to the use and disposal, including risk mitigation measures. The methodology will build upon the latest scientific insights and be specifically tailored to the needs of potential users such as regulators, industry and the health sector. Our specific objectives are:

• To map out the value chain of pharmaceuticals, identify environmental impacts and sustainability issues, and decide in collaboration with stakeholders which issues should be included in the integrated sustainability assessment.
• To develop methodological innovations to improve the sustainability assessment of the entire pharmaceutical value chain, addressing specific challenges such as scarcity of life cycle inventory (LCI) data, lacking characterisation factors for ecotoxicity, spatial distribution of the value chain and the inclusion of socioeconomic considerations.
• To integrate the innovations for sustainability assessment and demonstrate how this approach can be operationalised in practice, for instance in procurement, market approval and production planning.

The above-mentioned tasks will be performed in close collaboration between the postdoctoral researcher, two PhD candidates and several other TransPharm project partners. As a postdoctoral researcher, you will play an important role in the supervision of the PhD candidates and the coordination of the research activities in TransPharm. Furthermore you will be expected to align the TransPharm research activities with new developments in the safe-and-sustainable-by-design (SSbD) field taking place within the ES cluster (i.e. a new Assistant Professor of SSbD and a new collaborative project with the EC Joint Research Centre) and beyond.

• You hold a PhD in environmental sciences, preferably in the fields of life cycle assessment and/or chemical risk assessment. 
• You have analytical modelling skills, intrinsic motivation, and good communication skills.
• It is essential that you have a good command of oral and written English. Experience with environmental modelling and data analysis is a plus.

Fixed-term contract: one year, with the possibility of a 2 year extension in case of a positive evaluation of your performance.

• It concerns an employment for 0.8 - 1.0 FTE.
• The gross monthly salary amounts to a minimum of €2,960 and a maximum of €4,670 based on a 38-hour working week, depending on previous education and number of years of relevant work experience (salary scale 10).
• You will receive 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus.
• This is a temporary position on a one-year contract with the possibility of a two-year extension, provided you receive a positive performance review at the end of the contract period.
• You will be able to use our Dual Career and Family Care Services. Our Dual Career and Family Care Officer can assist you with family-related support, help your partner or spouse prepare for the local labour market, provide customized support in their search for employment and help your family settle in Nijmegen.
• Working for us means getting extra days off. In case of full-time employment, you can choose between 29 or 41 days of annual leave instead of the legally allotted 20.

Work and science require good employment practices. This is reflected in Radboud University's primary and secondary employment conditions. You can make arrangements for the best possible work-life balance with flexible working hours, various leave arrangements and working from home. You are also able to compose part of your employment conditions yourself, for example, exchange income for extra leave days and receive a reimbursement for your sports subscription. And of course, we offer a good pension plan. You are given plenty of room and responsibility to develop your talents and realise your ambitions. Therefore, we provide various training and development schemes.

The main focus of the Environmental Science cluster at the Faculty of Science is on quantifying, understanding and predicting human impacts on the environment. In our research we cover multiple pressures, species and spatial scales, searching for overarching principles that can ultimately be applied to better underpin environmental management and biodiversity conservation.


Radboud University
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