Working with us

Paid employment

CROPS RESEARCHER – REF: RES1303

The Organic Research Centre is looking to appoint a Researcher to its Crops & Agroforestry Team. The successful applicant will be responsible for the day-to-day delivery of ORC’s crops research programme, with a focus on the field based plant breeding projects. In particular, the Researcher will contribute to the COBRA project and, together with the Senior Crops Researcher and Crops and Agroforestry Team Leader, will assist in this project's management. This permanent position will report to the Senior Crops Researcher.

Candidates should be educated to degree level (at least 2.1) in Agricultural/ Biological/Ecological or related sciences or have equivalent experience to this level. Knowledge and understanding of plant and/or ecological genetics are essential. A relevant postgraduate qualification would be an advantage. Experience of designing and implementing field trials and experiments is also needed, as is an application of relevant statistical methods.

The closing date for applications is 9 am on Tuesday 11th June 2013. Interviews will be held at Wakelyns Agroforestry in Suffolk on 27th June 2013.

Further information and an application form can be downloaded here.

Charity trustees

If you would be interested in being a Trustee of the Charity, please get in contact with the Director, Nic Lampkin.

Internships and volunteers

Our intern programme is now full until the end of the summer 2013, but we are accepting applications for later in the year and for 2014

We welcome short and long term volunteers to assist us across all areas of activity and we operate an interns programme linked to specific research projects. A guide to interning at ORC can be downloaded here (PDF 285KB) and an intern application form can be download here (.DOC 47 KB). If you are interested in other types of volunteering please contact the relevant team leader for further information.

If you are looking for practical work opportunities on organic farms, we regret that we are not able to assist. Here are a few links worth trying:

Willing Workers On Organic Farms is a membership charity, teaching people about organic growing and low-impact lifestyles through hands-on experience in the UK;
The Soil Association maintains a list of external job vacancies and opportunities available on organic holdings and at likeminded organisations across the UK;
Environment Jobs lists jobs and volunteering opportunities in this area.

Postgraduate research

Opportunities may exist for MSc and PhD research projects linked to our current research areas. Contact the relevant team leader for further information.

Participatory research

Much of our research involves participatory engagement of producers and other businesses - we currently have over 50 businesses working with us and have now established a Participatory Research Network to develop this work. If you are a producer, processor or other business interested in getting involved with research, please contact the Senior Programme Manager.

Partner organisations

ORC works collaboratively on projects and in its dissemination of results with a number of UK and European partners.

Europe-wide, ORC was a founding member of The European Consortium for Organic Plant Breeding (ECO-PB) – for more information see their website www.ecopb.org.

We are members of FQH – the International Research Association for Organic Food Quality and Health. www.organicfqhresearch.org.

In the UK, ORC and HDRA work closely together under their Initiative on Organic Research (IOR). It was also a founding member of the Colloquium of Organic Researchers (COR) – contact our research department for more details of both. ORC is also a partner in Organic Centre Wales.

ORC works closely with IOTA, who have undertaken collation and analysis of organic research. Reports with practical recommendations for use by advisers and others is available on www.organicadvice.org.uk/res_reviews_public.htm.

Organic e-prints provides a fully searchable archive for all organic research. To upload results and search projects Europe wide go to www.orgprints.org.