Research Assistant - Chemicals

Hours: 35 hours per week
Salary: £21,000 to £24,000 per annum
Location: Hybrid/Flexible
Closing: Tuesday 28th June 2022
Interviews: Friday 8th July 2022

Protecting the ocean is part of the Marine Conservation Society’s DNA. While the ocean faces many threats and challenges to biodiversity and sustainability, the amount of pollution entering our environment exceeds the earths planetary boundaries. We are looking for someone who has an interest in working with the Clean Seas Team, to deliver its aims to reduce pollution at source and move towards a zero emissions target for pollutants.

You will be mostly working day-to-day with our chemical specialist and therefore candidates should have a strong background in ecotoxicology or chemistry with a strong environmental slant. An excellent foundation in undergraduate chemistry (or equivalent relevant experience) is an absolute must for this post and therefore candidates without this will not be considered.

Chemical regulation in the UK is currently at a crossroads and we must ensure that the marine environment is better protected from the impacts of harmful chemicals. Your role will involve conducting research to support work around consultations for the UK Chemicals Strategy and regulatory options around specific chemicals of emerging concern, like the highly persistent group of chemicals, PFAS.

Ready to dive in?

We’re doing things a little differently, so we’d like you to do two things for your application to us.

We’d like you to write a short document (less than one page) that gives a summary of any relevant experience or qualifications for the role, with a brief outline of any other information that would highlight your skills for the role.

For the next part of the application process, we have set two short tasks that are directly related to the type of work you might do in this role.

Candidates must keep strictly to the specified word limit or audio time limit (video not accepted).

1: It’s your first few days in this role, and you have been asked to provide either a blog or a podcast on how your role is going to help us reduce perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in everyday items.
We are providing you with the opportunity to make your response either as a written OR an audio piece. Please do not submit both. You can choose which formats best reflects your thoughts and personality, rather than your academic style.

If you choose to make an audio recording, limit it to 3 minutes and send it to us via email as an MP3 file or voice note.

If you’d prefer to write a blog, keep it to 450 words (equivalent to 3 minutes of audio).

2: You have been asked to attend a webinar on behalf of the Clean Seas Team and provide a summary afterwards for the team. We are not all chemical experts but have a good scientific understanding. Summarise the webinar and slides in 450 words (written only this time - no audio submission unless it’s required as an adjustment for you). Remember, we are a marine focused charity but stopping pollution at source is a key part of our message.

Please select the apply button shown for more information and to submit your application.

So that our shortlisting process is anonymous, please don’t include personal information like a photograph, your contact information, name and age on any of your documents.

Get in touch with us if you have any questions about the tasks, or if you have problems sending an audio file.

This role will be home-based but you’ll need easy access to good transport (rail) links so that you can get to meetings or events, and to meet your colleagues in major cities in mainland UK. We’d like to welcome you to our team in the summer or autumn, depending on your availability.

This vacancy is being advertised by Webrecruit. The services advertised by Webrecruit are those of an Employment Agency.