Context
The development of the bioeconomy raises questions about competition for the use of agricultural resources to meet food (human and animal), energy and materials supply needs. In addition, the fact that planetary limits are being exceeded makes it urgent to identify the causes of environmental impact, causes that can be complicated to unravel because of globalised production-distribution networks. In addition to these environmental issues, French agriculture today faces economic and social challenges in renewing itself and satisfying consumer demand. At the intersection of all these issues, the SOCLE project proposes to improve knowledge of the physical structure of agricultural product flow networks in France and abroad, as well as their environmental and employment impacts.
The SOCLE project has three aims:
- Improve knowledge of the French agri-food system (flows and footprints), its contribution to the bioeconomy, and its links with partners and international markets,
- Integrate or create interfaces with pre-existing tools and knowledge,
- Work throughout the project to ensure that the results are taken on board by the stakeholders (sectors and institutions), in particular by discussing and designing the deliverables and visuals with them.
- SOCLE follows on from previous work on quantifying material flows in French agri-food sectors (https://www.filarmoni.fr/resultats-du-rmt/diagrammes-de-flux, Courtonne et al., 2015) and brings together partners from research (Inria and INRAE), the sector (CTIFL, IDELE, IFCE, Intercéréales, Terres Univia) and two consultancies (TerriFlux, Basic).
Planned tasks:
- The planned mission comprises a main task and a complementary task, each interacting with permanent researchers/engineers from the consortium.
- Task 1 (main): Design of the SOCLE model – Integration of national material flow models into an international flow model. o Comparison of existing international models: FABIO (Bruckner et al., 2019), GLOBAGRI (Le Mouël et al. 2018), BIOBAM (Kalt et al., 2021), o Proposal of a hybrid model or selection of one of the existing models,
- o Integration of the French industry models (very detailed models) into the international model (coarser), while maintaining all levels of detail. The aim is to be able to use the same basic dataset both to deal with macro- scopic issues and for specific expert appraisals of a given sector, o Participation in the design of the model query interface.
- Task 2 (complementary): Environmental extensions – Participation in the coupling of the SOCLE model with several environmental issues. The focus will be on energy, nitrogen, land use and water abstraction/consumption. As with task 1, the work will be carried out in close collaboration with the consortium.
- Writing scientific articles and oral communications at meetings and conferences.
Profile
We encourage people who meet only some of the criteria below to apply in spite of everything, as long as there is room for reorientation of the position.
- Holder of a doctorate or about to do so in the fields of ecological economics, industrial ecology, agricultural economics… (non-exhaustive list),
- Mastery of at least one environmental assessment method, e.g. AFM (material flow analysis), LCA (life cycle analysis), EE-IO (input-output analysis extended to the environment),
- Knowledge of agri-food systems,
- Database management,
- Programming, data processing scripts (e.g. Python, R, etc.). Typically reading databases or spreadsheets -> processing -> exporting databases or spreadsheets,
- Autonomy and ability to work with a variety of partners (academic and non-academic).
Host teams
Le ou la postdoc sera accueilli.e au sein de l’équipe STEEP (steep.inria.fr) de l’Inria Grenoble et travaillera principalement avec Jean-Yves Courtonne, qui coordonne le projet SOCLE. L’équipe compte entre 20 et 25 permanent.e.s et étudiant.e.s et s’intéresse à la modélisation systémique des interactions entres facteurs environnementaux, économiques et sociaux. Le travail en question s’inscrit dans l’axe de recherche « alternatives socio-techniques ». Des échanges fréquents ainsi que deux séjours de recherche sont également prévus avec l’UMR SMART de l’INRAE Rennes. Constitué d’une soixantaine de personnes dont 30 chercheurs ou enseignant chercheurs, ses travaux s’articulent autour des questions relatives aux structures et marchés agricoles, aux ressources et aux territoires. Elle dispose d’une expertise reconnue dans la modélisation des marchés agricoles. Le travail se fera en relation avec l’équipe chargée de la construction de la base de données pour les modèles globaux de l’UMR SMART dont les référents techniques sont Agneta Forslund pour le modèle GLOBAGRI et Fabrice Levert pour le modèle MATSIM- LUCA. Au-delà de cette équipe encadrante, des contacts sont déjà établis avec plusieurs autres chercheurs en France et à l’étranger (concepteurs des modèles FABIO et GLOBAGRI notamment).
Job conditions
- Holder of a doctorate or about to do so in the fields of ecological economics, industrial ecology, agricultural economics… (non-exhaustive list),
- Mastery of at least one environmental assessment method, e.g. AFM (material flow analysis), LCA (life cycle analysis), EE-IO (input-output analysis extended to the environment),
- Knowledge of agri-food systems,
- Database management,
- Programming, data processing scripts (e.g. Python, R, etc.). Typically reading databases or spreadsheets -> processing -> exporting databases or spreadsheets,
- Autonomy and ability to work with a variety of partners (academic and non-academic).
- 24-month fixed-term contract (starting in January 2025, but open to start earlier or later),
- The research centre is located in Montbonnot, a few kilometres from Grenoble,
- Gross monthly salary of €2,788,
- Subsidy for meals and public transport / bicycle.
- Office, computer, access to team databases and software.
How to apply
We advise you to contact us as soon as possible, even with an incomplete application, to discuss your profile, your constraints, etc.
- Send a CV and covering letter to: jean-yves.courtonne [at] inria.fr
- Deadline: 17 October 2024
References
Bruckner, M., Wood, R., Moran, D., Kuschnig, N., Wieland, H., Maus, V., & Börner, J. (2019a). FABIO—the construction of the food and agriculture biomass input–output model. Environmental science & technology, 53(19), 11302-11312.
Kalt, G., Mayer, A., Haberl, H., Kaufmann, L., Lauk, C., Matej, S., … & Erb, K. H. (2021a). Exploring the option space for land system futures at regional to global scales: The diagnostic agro-food, land use and greenhouse gas emission model BioBaM-GHG 2.0. Ecological Modelling, 459, 109729.
Le Mouël, C., Dumas, P., Manceron, S., Forslund, A., & Marajo-Petitzon, E. (2018). The GlobAgri- Agrimonde-Terra database and model.
