Join our institute and become part of the VLIZ Marine Observation Centre!

The Marine Observation Centre (MOC) is dedicated to performing essential, long-term, and multidisciplinary observations of the marine environment, enhancing our understanding of the dynamics and functioning of marine and coastal ecosystems. MOC focuses on developing, operating, and optimizing innovative, integrated, and cost-effective observation systems to gather high-quality data crucial for marine research.

VLIZ is hiring, for immediate employment, a Researcher-Project Manager Marine Biodiversity to help coordinate and/or support our contribution to a number of European projects dealing with digital innovation to biodiversity observation and analysis (iMagine, ANERIS, Marbefes, Marco-Bolo, DTO-BioFlow); and to continue the long-term phytoplankton timeseries in the Belgian Part of the North Sea through imaging and AI supported classification.

This position falls under the research line ‘understanding and optimizing novel biodiversity observations’. This team studies changes and dynamics of coastal ecosystems by applying and optimizing high throughput techniques such as plankton imaging and marine genomics and driving digital innovation to biodiversity observation and analysis.

You will work closely with internal teams, project partners and stakeholders, managing the VLIZ commitments in various European projects related to biodiversity observation. You will also support ongoing research into plankton dynamics in the Belgian Part of the North Sea.

• You will conduct general project management in consultation with the project team.
• You lead the project team and contribute to the project tasks where needed: internally managing and following up with project employees for specific tasks, adjusting and delegating if necessary.
• You report on project progress in line with the organization's structure and project partners (working hours, tasks performed, status, deadlines) + communication at national and international levels.
• You organize, participate, report on and follow up on project and network meetings, workshops and conferences.
• You coordinate and/or execute measurement campaigns, sampling campaigns and/or experiments, including preparation.
• You coordinate and/or execute the collection of the necessary data and the scientific processing and analysis of this data.
• You coordinate and/or execute manuscript writing for A1 publications, book chapters, and conference proceedings and you do the monitoring of the publication process.
• You stay up to date with the scientific state of the art in the field of marine biodiversity and ecosystem research.
• You contribute to outreach activities to stakeholders and the general public in line with the VLIZ communication strategy.

• You have a PhD or master’s degree in exact sciences (e.g. biology) or applied sciences (bioscience engineering).
• You are a highly motivated professional, capable of managing complex R&I-projects autonomously, while also collaborating effectively within a team.
• You have strong affinity for marine sciences and biodiversity research.
• You have knowledge of marine plankton research.
• You have strong skills in organization, planning and management of projects.
• You have strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• You are willing to spend time at sea for multiple days.
• You are willing to work in an international context.
• A sense of humor is appreciated.

Following skills or experiences are considered an asset:

• Experience with scientific project management.
• Experience with plankton imaging or marine genomics.
• Proven experience in data analytics in R or Python.
• Proven publication and report writing skills.
• Experience with collaborating in European projects.
• Knowledge of data handling or management.
• Sea-going experience.