Microbiology R&D Research Scientist

Job Title: Microbiology R&D Research Scientist

Business Function: Home Care R&D

Location: Port Sunlight Research Lab

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 scientist within the Microbiology team and the aim is to develop and validate robust microbiological methodologies for Global Home Care preservation applications employed via the R&D and Quality networks. This will provide a standardised and validated approach to assessment of preservation technologies. 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 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

• Sample administration

• Microbiological analysis of Home Care products

• Data review & knowledge gathering

• Design and perform practical work to evaluate preservative efficacy and ad hoc testing

• Data capture – ensure all data is generated and logged using the latest Digital tools available

• 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

• Work with the greater team to contribute to the Preservation 2.0 programme

• Maintaining strong links and developing networks across multi-disciplinary project teams, including formulation, quality and regulatory / safety contacts

• Standardise data capture to feed into models

• Review existing internal and external methods across R&D and Quality applications in preservation

• Refine and develop new methods, ensuring thorough validation and clearly communicate deployment of new the standards across the business

• Report and make recommendations to stakeholders

ALL ABOUT YOU

• Microbiological Science background in microbiology with relevant applied industrial microbiology experience. Ideally to BSc or MSc level with experience

• Previous practical microbiology experience in the same or similar field (Home and Personal Care products)

• Knowledge and experience of standard microbiological procedures

• Experienced in the creation, development and implementation of ideas related to microbiology

• Ability to write scientific papers and reports

• Proven science and technology experience in applied microbiology

• Proven experimental design capability

• Experience in working with external partners

• Excellent IT/Information technology awareness

• Communication/Networking - Including be able to present technical information using appropriate language, both verbal and written, to specialist and non-specialist audiences

• Team working - Working in multidisciplinary teams including being able to establish and communicate objectives to team members and stakeholders

• Practical creativity - including being able to uses ideas from a range of sources to recommend new approaches to work

• 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

• Planning and Organisation - Setting priorities to resolve conflicting demands to make the most efficient use of time

NOTES

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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