Postdoc Co-Creation and Impact Monitoring of Digital Support for Sustainable Farming Practices Wageningen • Wageningen University & Research

Are you passionate about sustainable agriculture and digital innovation? Join a dynamic team developing the PHITO app, tailored to support small and medium farmers in their transition to sustainable practices. This role involves co-creation and impact monitoring, ensuring the app addresses real farmer needs. Enjoy benefits like sabbatical leave, flexible working hours, and campus sports facilities. Be part of a groundbreaking project that empowers farmers and fosters environmental stewardship. Delve deeper to learn about the benefits of joining our team.

Your job

Are you a transdisciplinary researcher with an interest in the role of digitalization to support small and medium farmers in transitioning to more sustainable food production? Do you want to work on designing a systematic approach to tailor digital advice to farmers’ needs  and measure impact? Then this may be a great undertaking for you!

Embracing technology is crucial for sustainable agriculture. From precision farming and smart irrigation to data-driven decision-making, technology opens avenues for increased productivity, resource optimization, and environmental stewardship. However, while large producers often embrace digital solutions, small and medium-sized farmers (SMFs) often lag behind. To empower all farmers, within the Horizon Europe PHITO project we are developing an app addressing  farmers’ needs, especially those of SMFs. The PHITO app is being built in a collaborative effort involving users from the start. That way we ensure that our app evolves based on real needs making it innovative and impactful. The app is built around three features: geo-data integration for farming advice, townsquare for community and market linkages, and guidance on transition pathways towards sustainable farming practices.

As postdoc Co-Creation and Impact Monitoring of Digital Support for Sustainable Farming Practices you will contribute to ensuring the PHITO app is targeting key challenges experienced by SMFs and other food system actors. You will be responsible for designing a systematic approach to position SMFs along vulnerability aspects and sustainability transition gradients. You will oversee the compilation of best practices addressing the key challenges observed, and design a way to monitor performance enhancement due to (digitally advised) adoption of improved practices, and ultimately, to assess project impact.  

Your duties and responsibilities include:

• Analyzing user needs assessment data collected from farmers in the 7 food systems of the PHITO project, and refinement of farmer typologies and their linkages to personas for the PHITO app.
• Make a compilation of best practices, systematically assess these in terms of costs, prerequisites, level of knowledge required, and rank them according to scope for improved economic and environmental performance.
• Developing food system-specific economic and environmental performance indicators to measure the impact of PHITO for SMFs and coordinating with food system partners to monitor the effect of improved practices on individual farms and to assess project impact.
• Writing project deliverable reports and publications. 

Your team
You will work within the PHITO project, a 5-year project (2023-2028) funded by Horizon Europe and coordinated by Wageningen University. The consortium is composed of 17 partners. The project activities are concentrated in 7 food systems in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Albania, Hungary, Romania and the Dutch Caribbean. The project partners include research partners, innovation partners and food system partners. The PHITO project also features the PHITO Van, a vehicle equipped for fieldwork and available for field trips.         
Your qualities

You are creative, proactive, flexible, and focused on teamwork. You have strong organizational skills and excellent communication skills. You have good awareness of the challenges faced by small and medium farmers and a keen interest in digital technology to support the transition towards sustainable farming practices.
You also possess:

• A PhD in environmental and natural resource management, agroecology, social sciences with an environmental focus, or similar interdisciplinary fields
• Demonstrable experience in creating farmer typologies or farming system characterizations
• Qualitative and quantitative data analysis skills with a focus on M&E or impact assessment
• Proven ability to implement conceptual approaches in applied research and practice
• Proficiency in one or more of the languages of the PHITO food system areas (i.e. Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Albanian, Hungarian, Romanian, Papiamentu) is an advantage.

In our international working environment there is an increasing amount of communication in English. For this position it is about language level C1 .

You will work here
The research is embedded within the chair Soil Physics and Land Management (SLM). The SLM group advances understanding of soil physical processes and their role in supporting soil functions and addresses sustainable soil and land management to support global societal challenges of climate, water and food security. You will work under the supervision of Dr. Luuk Fleskens.
We offer you

Wageningen University & Research offers excellent terms of employment. A few highlights from our Collective Labour Agreement include:

• sabbatical leave, study leave, and partially paid parental leave;
• working hours that can be discussed and arranged so that they allow for the best possible work-life balance;
• there is a strong focus on vitality and you can make use of the sports facilities available on campus for a small fee;
• a fixed year-end bonus of 8.3%;
• excellent pension scheme.

In addition to these first-rate employee benefits, you will of course receive a good salary. Depending on your experience, we offer a competitive gross salary of between € 3,546.- and € 5,538- for a full-time working week of 38 hours, in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreements for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU) (scale 10). As for your contract, we initially offer a one-year contract that can be extended - if possible within (company) organizational circumstances - on good performance. Of course, we are happy to have a conversation with you if you have any questions about this.

Wageningen University & Research offers plenty of opportunities for growth and development, with a strong internal recruitment policy and excellent training programmes.

You will work on the greenest and most innovative campus in the Netherlands, in an international and open working environment. For 20 consecutive years, we have been voted the "best university" in the Netherlands! A place to be proud of.

Coming from abroad
Wageningen University & Research is the university and research centre for life sciences. The themes we deal with are relevant to everyone around the world and Wageningen, therefore, has a large international community and a lot to offer to international employees.

Because we expect you to work and live in the Netherlands our team of advisors on Dutch immigration procedures will help you with the visa application procedures for yourself and, if applicable, for your family.
Feeling welcome also has everything to do with being well informed. Wageningen University & Research's International Community page contains practical information about what we can do to support international employees coming to Wageningen. Furthermore, our Welcome Center can assist you with any additional advice and information about for example housing, opening a bank account, dual career programs or schooling. Finally, certain categories of international staff may be eligible for a tax exemption on a part of their salary during the first five years in the Netherlands.
Do you want more information?

For more information about the position, please contact Luuk Fleskens, interim chair and PHITO project coordinator, via de button "Solliciteer nu" op deze pagina. or Abraham Abishek, PHITO project manager, via de button "Solliciteer nu" op deze pagina..

Questions about the procedure? Get in touch with Jessa Rozema, Corporate Recruiter, via de button "Solliciteer nu" op deze pagina.

Ready to apply?
Click on the application button next to the vacancy on our website. Only applications submitted through our website will be considered.

You can apply until 8 September 2025. The first interviews are scheduled for 16 and 17 September 2025.

Procedure
As part of our selection process, an assessment may be incorporated within the procedure

Welcome, safe, and valued
Wageningen University & Research (WUR) highly values diversity and inclusion because we believe that different insights lead to innovative solutions. We create a work environment where everyone feels welcome, safe, and appreciated, regardless of background, identity, or experience. Together, we are building a culture where everyone's unique contribution adds to the success of our organization.

We are

The mission of Wageningen University & Research is ‘To explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life’.

We pursue this mission through a synergistic approach between Wageningen University and Wageningen Research Foundation (applied research). Our research focuses on questions within the domains of food, living environment, and society. With approximately 30 locations, 7,700 staff members, 2,500 PhD candidates, and over 13,000 students, Wageningen University & Research is among the world’s leading knowledge institutions in its domain. The integral approach to challenges and the collaboration across various disciplines form the core of the unique Wageningen approach.

Read the 5 reasons why your future colleagues enjoy working at WUR.

We will recruit for the vacancy ourselves, so no employment agencies please. However, sharing in your network is appreciated.