Research Fellow in Fermentation Processes and Bioeconomies

University of Leeds

Location:	Leeds
Salary:	£41,064 to £48,822 p.a. Grade 7
Hours:	Full Time
Contract Type:	Fixed-Term/Contract

Placed On:	9th April 2026
Closes:	23rd April 2026
Job Ref:	EPSPE1126

Do you have a strong interest in fermentation? Do you have experience in process design and life cycle assessments? Are you keen to develop your career in bioeconomies? Do you want to further your career in one of the UK’s leading research-intensive Universities?

Achieving economically viable, sustainable and net‑zero production routes for biogenically derived chemicals remains one of the fundamental challenges facing the global bioeconomy. Converting bio‑waste streams, including food, paper, and agricultural residues into high-value products, offers a transformative opportunity: these waste materials are low-cost, widely available, and currently underutilised. Recent advances have demonstrated that such wastes can be efficiently processed to yield high concentrations of fermentable sugars, unlocking new pathways for producing bioplastics, platform chemicals, and next-generation bio-manufactured materials.

This project will create the first integrated digital twin of an intensified bio–waste–to–sugars conversion process, enabling industry and policymakers to understand how the process system performs technically, economically and environmentally at scale. As the Research Fellow, you will develop process models which will support the wider optimisation frameworks and system-level sustainability assessments to:

• Map and evaluate material, energy and resource supply chains.
• Integrate novel manufacturing and separation technologies into an intensified process flowsheet.
• Design multi-criteria decision‑support tools capturing cost, carbon, land‑use, circularity and resilience metrics.
• Quantify and manage uncertainties in supply, quality, and logistics of bio‑waste feedstocks.
• Identify the most economically competitive and environmentally robust deployment scenarios for UK and international markets.

The outcomes of this work will directly support the scale-up of circular, bio-based manufacturing technologies, offering evidence-backed strategies for cost reduction, process intensification, and sustainable market entry.

This project is part of a UKRI‑BBSRC-funded programme based at the University of Leeds, working closely with collaborators at the Universities of Manchester and Warwick. The project sits within the Global Challenge Centre for Innovative Recycling and Circular Economy (CIRCLE), engaging an international consortium of academic and industrial partners across the USA, Canada, Korea and Australia (www.jcvi.org/research/circle). The successful applicant will join a growing community working at the interface of biotechnology, process systems engineering, circular economy innovation, and global sustainability.

We are open to discussing flexible working arrangements.

To explore the post further or for any queries you may have, please contact:

Professor John Blacker, Professor
Email: J.Blacker@leeds.ac.uk

Please note that this post may be suitable for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker visa route but first-time applicants might need to qualify for salary concessions. For more information, please visit the Government’s Skilled Worker visa page.

For research and academic posts, we will consider eligibility under the Global Talent visa. For more information, please visit the Government’s page, Apply for the Global Talent visa.