Job Title: R&D Research Scientist – Microbiology (Biochemist)
Business Function: Research
Location: Port Sunlight R&D
JOB PURPOSE
Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Food, Home and Personal Care products with sales in over 190 countries and reaching 2 billion consumers a day.
Unilever is the place where you can bring your purpose to life through the work that you do, creating a better business and a better world. You will work with the Home Care Design teams to create brands that are loved and improve the lives of our consumers and the communities around us.
Persil, Surf, Skip, Robijn, Omo, Cif, Domestos; all amongst the world’s most recognisable brands developed by Unilever’s Global Development Centre.
In your role you closely work with partners in Science & Technology, Formulation, Quality, Supply Chain and Procurement to deliver new and winning product innovations into our markets.
A new Research Scientist position has been created within the Home Care Preservation and Applied Microbiology team based at Port Sunlight, Merseyside whose role is to support the business in ensuring products of today and the future are microbiologically safe by design. The role is for a Biochemist who would be working with the team to help design and develop novel approaches to product preservation. The role will require in depth knowledge on the microbial biochemical pathways and define approaches to disrupt these pathways. The successful candidate would also support with the evaluation and risk assessment of existing preservative technologies across different Home Care formats.
The purpose of the Microbiology preservation team is to provide a global technical expertise centre to support the Global Home Care Design and Deploy business in partnership with regional sister laboratories in other parts of the world. Microbiological expertise is provided on formulation and process design, microbiological methods and supply chain hygiene. A further aim is to drive operational efficiencies and global ways of working with our sister laboratories. The team is responsible for a hygiene assessment of all innovations from Home Care (HC) Global Design Centres.
RESPONSIBILITIES
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Understand the critical biochemical pathways relevant for a microorganism to survive and highlight key areas to help disrupt these pathways.
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Generate funnel of key antimicrobial chemistries and their analogues that will trigger the disruption of these biochemical pathways.
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Build an understanding of the survivability/resistance of the microorganisms in our products and factories. And then suggest targeted mode of actions to minimize the resistance. This will require a good understanding of ingredients in our formulations and factories that are leading to resistance.
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Create/build targeted and holistic preservative systems in our formulations to minimize dependency on single antimicrobial chemistries/ preservatives. This involves understanding the impact of different formulation ingredients on the biochemical pathway of the microorganisms.
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Data review & knowledge gathering
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Coordinate the evaluation of existing and new preservation technologies across HC to ensure products are safe by design from a formulation/preservation and processing perspective, working as part of multi-disciplinary project team.
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Design and perform practical work to evaluate preservative efficacy and ad hoc testing. Report and make recommendations to stakeholders.
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Data capture – ensure all data is generated and logged using the latest Digital tools available.
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Maintaining strong links and developing networks across multi-disciplinary project teams, including formulation, quality, and regulatory / safety contacts.
ALL ABOUT YOU
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Biochemistry science background. BSc/Msc level
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Relevant experience and good understanding of the biochemical pathways of the different types of microorganisms
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Ability to write scientific papers and reports.
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Good Communication/Networking skills. Both verbal and written good communication skills are necessary
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Team working - Working in multidisciplinary teams including being able to establish and communicate objectives to team members and stakeholders.
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Practical creativity - including being able to uses ideas from a range of sources to recommend new approaches to work.
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Judgement - Proven problem solver and decision maker capable of using technical judgement when complete information is not available. Being able to present sound and practical judgements to support decisions where there may be significant implications.
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Planning and Organisation. Setting priorities to resolve conflicting demands to make the most efficient use of time.
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Ownership and accountability – The individual should own the work and be accountable in moving the projects forward.
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Result oriented, agile and adapt to change. The individual will need to work in an agile way and be adaptable to change as this is a dynamic working environment.
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Proven experimental design capability.
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Excellent IT/Information Technology awareness.
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Experience in working with external partners.
NOTES
About Unilever
Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Food, Home and Personal Care products with sales in over 190 countries and reaching 2 billion consumers a day. Unilever has more than 400 brands found in homes around the world, including Dove, Tresemme, Lynx, Lifebuoy, Shea Moisture, Persil, Domestos, Ben & Jerry’s, Magnum, Marmite, The Vegetarian Butcher, Graze and Pot Noodle.
Faced with the challenge of climate change and the need for human development, we want to move towards a world where everyone can live well and within the natural limits of the planet. That’s why our purpose is ‘to make sustainable living commonplace’
What We Offer
Not only do we offer a competitive salary and pension scheme, we also offer an annual bonus, subsidised gym membership, a discounted staff shop and shares. You’ll have the opportunity to work directly with our renowned and exciting brands in a flexible and hybrid working environment.
Whilst the role is advertised on a full-time basis, we would be happy to discuss possible flexible working options and what this may look like for you. We are a key advocate of wellbeing and offer a variety of support for our people including hubs, programmes and development opportunities. We strive to achieve a family-friendly and inclusive workplace and to, above all, create possibilities for all.
Diversity at Unilever is about inclusion, embracing differences, creating possibilities and growing together for better business performance. We embrace diversity in our workforce. This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity. We are also more than happy to provide reasonable adjustments during our application and interview process to enable you to be present your best self. To find out more, including about our Employee Resource Groups, please click here
Equity, Diversity & Inclusion at Unilever | Unilever
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