Senior Scientific Officer – Seed systems

ICRISAT seeks applications from dynamic Indian nationals for the position Senior Scientific Officer to support ICRISAT Seed systems team under Global Research Program Accelerated Crop Improvement. The staff will be based in HQ at Patancheru for needs to travel in different districts of Odisha. This position is intended to implement station seed production, various crop demonstrations, agronomy interventions, disease and pest management and undertaking varietal testing suitable for the different districts and intensive data monitoring.

ICRISAT is a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world. Covering 6.5 million square kilometers of land in 55 countries, the semi- arid or dryland tropics has over 2 billion people and 644 million of these are the poorest of the poor. ICRISAT and its partners help empower these disadvantaged populations to overcome poverty, hunger, and a degraded environment through better agricultural production systems.

ICRISAT is headquartered at Patancheru near Hyderabad, India, with two regional hubs and eight country offices in sub-Saharan Africa. ICRISAT envisions prosperous, food-secure, and resilient dryland tropics. Its mission is to reduce poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and environmental degradation in the dryland tropics. ICRISAT conducts research on its mandated crops of chickpea, pigeonpea, groundnut, sorghum, pearl millet and finger millet in the arid and semi-arid tropics. The Institute focuses its work on drylands and in protecting the environment. Tropical dryland areas are usually seen as resource-poor and perennially beset by shocks such as drought, thereby trapping dryland communities in poverty and hunger and making them dependent on external aid. Please visit  www.icrisat.org

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Work closely with senior scientists to facilitate research, Implementation and partnership activities and assist in the different areas of projects in seed systems and their management life cycle. 
• Plan and undertake on campus Breeder seed production of ICRISAT mandate crops and ensure its purity, quality standards and share high quality seeds to indenters. 
• Liaise with the department officials for the smooth coordination of the projects in the seed sector. 
• Coordinate with state seed certification agency and seed corporation for developing a formal seed chain in the project districts. 
• Take lead responsibility in ensuring fieldwork and database management and developing data collection tools with quality standards. 
• Assess progress and key indicators on the impact and quality of the project through the management and development of a gender data management system. 
• Assisting the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation by providing quality input and analysis from survey data and qualitative studies (as indicated by the project lead) 
• Take a leading responsibility as a team member to develop periodic reports and tables, allowing program scientists to track their projects. 
• Strongly contribute to the training and updating of knowledge and research techniques to the rest of the staff working in the unit and keep updated on new research techniques or processes. 
• Contribute to developing strategic partnerships, knowledge sharing, and capacity development of various stakeholders. 
• Perform a range of project coordination and monitor the performance of research collaborators/partners (deliverables and milestones) 
• Supervise technical assistants and other contractual staff to ensure adherence to the project objectives. 
• Communicate and respond to program partners and collaborators requests and manage these partnerships. 
• Any other assignment as instructed by your supervisor. 

Requirement:

• Masters degree in agricultural sciences (preferably genetics/plant breeding/seed science & technology), with experience in seed production, crop demonstrations participatory farmer selections, and field trials management with at least two years of experience 
• Demonstrate capacity to work collaboratively as part of a multi-disciplinary team. 
• Proficiency in English (written and spoken) is a must, and any other language is preferable. 
• Perform other duties as requested by the Project Investigator/State coordinator of the project. 
• Willingness to work in an extremely challenging environment of the Tribal regions. 

General:

This is a contractual role for a period of 36 months (3 years).

How to apply:

Applicants should apply on or before 27 August 2023, with their latest Resume, and the names and contact information of three references that are knowledgeable about their professional qualifications and work experience. All applications will be acknowledged; however only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

ICRISAT is an equal opportunity employer.