Ecosystems Services Scientist - Offshore Energy

Renowned internationally for its research excellence supporting a sustainable ocean, Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) has an exciting opportunity for an Ecosystem Services Scientist to work with economists, social scientists and environmental scientists as a member of its ‘Sea and Society’ Area. 

The role will require you to undertake high quality specialist ecosystem services research, in a highly interdisciplinary environment, including supporting the delivery of existing projects and further developing your own portfolio of funded research. Existing projects include the UKERC Energy, Environment and Landscapes project (https://ukerc.ac.uk/research/environment) which is researching the environmental implications of the UK energy transition, the NERC funded DREAMS project https://pml.ac.uk/science/projects/DREAMS, which aims to develop a new understanding of decommissioning strategies for man-made structures and the recently funded MOET project which will provide the UK’s first holistic study of the environmental and social impacts resulting from offshore windfarms and subsurface storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen (H2), driven by the UK’s energy transition to net zero emissions (net zero).

Key Deliverables of the role:

• To deliver ecosystem services research related to currently funded projects
• To continuously develop, and contribute to, a portfolio of funded ecosystem services research and the growth of interdisciplinary research in PML
• To produce high quality publications and other associated outputs
• To ensure outreach, dissemination and impact of PML research

Experience & Eligibility Requirements:

• A motivated individual with a PhD, or equivalent level experience
• You must be able apply an understanding of marine ecosystem structure and function to quantify changes in marine ecosystem services or natural capital, for example following changes in marine planning, marine renewable energy implementation
• Skills in GIS, ecosystem services modelling (including InVEST) or handling large meta-databases in Excel or R are desirable.
• A proven record of written and published scientific papers;
• Experience in marine renewable energy is preferable but not essential
• Clearly demonstrable capability in use of office IT (including Microsoft Teams)
• Demonstrate good dissemination skills at meetings, workshops, conference presentations, virtual conferencing

PML offers a variety of employee benefits which can be viewed here: https://www.pml.ac.uk/Working-with-us/Employee-benefits

As part of PML’s 20^th anniversary of becoming an independent organisation with charitable status (2002-2022), we asked PML people why they enjoy working at PML and what makes it special – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdQf-2ffnlY