About the job

Job summary

Passionate about making a difference and playing your part in tackling the climate and nature crisis?  Forest Research (FR) is all about giving top quality evidence and advice to policymakers and practitioners to make a positive impact on the ground. Internationally recognised, we need people who have the skills and passion to work on excellent science and provide practical solutions for nature.

We’re small enough that your voice is heard, yet large enough, as part of the Forestry Commission, that we have everything on hand to get the job done, as well as a variety of career pathways.  Our staff are dedicated to their work and sharing it with others to bring positive change for our planet.  And you will find us a flexible and inclusive employer, so you can have a work life balance that is tailor-made to your circumstances.   Diverse perspectives and experiences are critical to our success and we welcome applications from all people from all backgrounds with the experience and skills needed to perform this role.  To find out more about FR, visit www.forestresearch.gov.uk.

The role itself, is one of a number of new roles, following our success in securing funding through the Nature for Climate Fund (NCF), managed by Defra. The NCF supports a range of diverse research projects from climate to biodiversity, aimed at significantly increasing our knowledge around woodland planting and management, helping to plant the right trees in the right place for the right reason, and so benefiting our society and the natural environment.  

 

Job description

The role will be based within Forest Genetics science group, which contributes to our understanding of forest genetic resources and tree breeding. Genetic diversity is a key factor in the resilience of our forests and our research informs and underpins policy on the conservation of forest genetic resources. The position is funded within the Nature for Climate Fund ‘Research Forests’ project, which runs until the end of March 2025 and is tasked with extending the network of Research Forests within England.

 

There is a pressing need to:

• Realise the value and raise awareness of existing FR Silviculture and Genetics trials and their associated data, especially those derived from work in the current (and future) Research Forests
• Ensure that the associated datasets are identified, prioritised, catalogued, quality-checked and standardised
• Liaise with FR IT professionals to ensure that the new datasets are suitable for archiving within the wider FR data storage and retrieval systems
• Support the ‘Research Forests’ Project Team and other associated science groups to scope and design appropriate data-capture systems for the next generation of field trials

This specific, temporary appointment (enabled via seed-funding) is intended to undertake an initial delivery phase and scoping of the longer-term vision for the NCF ‘Research Forests’ project only.

Working closely with FR IT and the Digitisation Team in order to complement their work without duplicating. The successful candidate will work to make both recent and ‘legacy’ datasets and summary information / metadata readily available (both publicly and internally) for selected FR Silviculture and Genetics experiments.

Key Work Areas:

1. Work with scientists from the FR Silviculture and Genetics teams in order to understand their needs and priorities, and to determine a suitable strategy. 
2. Liaising with the FR IT Data and Digitisation teams, ensure that the strategy and methodologies will be compatible with the wider FR data systems in terms of quality-assurance, format, storage and sharing
3. Ensure that all work is undertaken within the FR IT Data Policy and Process Framework
4. Identify and prioritise the relevant series of historical and current trials, and their associated data-sets
5. Scope, catalogue, quality / error-check, validate and standardise the data. Data-sets will typically relate to observations of field performance of trees in experiments made on multiple occasions for either silvicultural or tree-breeding objectives.
6. Collate the data into suitable contemporary software formats and create appropriate searchable metadata by curating and merging existing metadata information with up-to-date publicly available spatial datasets (e.g. climate and weather, lithology)
7. Where required, work with other FR science groups associated with the project, e.g. the Mensuration, Growth and Yield Team, to develop data-capture systems and Reproducible Analytical Pipelines for new and emerging field trials

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• Experience in data handling/management
• Experience of setting-up and managing modern database environments
• Good collaborative skills to work with IT and Digitisation teams, data managers and scientists
• Willingness to undertake occasional travel within the UK

Desirable Criteria:

• Experience of programming (e.g. C#, R, Java, PHP), particularly for reading/converting older data files into a standard format
• Experience with Oracle, PostGres or XML
• Experience of handling ‘legacy’ data files
• Forestry/Forest Science experience , with an understanding of experiment design and agricultural/forestry /ecological/biological field trials
• An understanding of Reproducible Analytical Pipelines, particularly in a public sector environment would be desirable

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £35,870, Forestry Commission - Forest Research contributes £9,684 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

Sifts:           Week commencing 15th January 2024 Interviews:  Interviews will take place 24th-26th January 2024 If a large volume of applications are received, then we will sift on Experience/Technical Expertise and the Lead Behaviour, Working Together. However, candidates will be expected to answer questions on all behaviours at the interview stage. Candidates who are judged to be a near miss at interview may be considered for other positions in Forest Research which may be at a lower grade, but have a potential skills match.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.