GreenX3 is a MSCA-DN-ID industrial doctorate program funded by the European Union. Positions within these programs are offered to European and non-European doctoral candidates to implement individual projects in a European country other than their own. Doctoral networks have the objective to promote international, inter-sectoral and multidisciplinary collaborations for doctoral-level training in Europe. Additionally, an industrial doctorate requires the mandatory involvement of the non-academic sector in the doctoral training. Therefore, the candidate will spend 50% of his/her working time in the non-academic sector.
The GreenX3 project will create an interdisciplinary and intersectoral network to train 10 doctoral candidates and 3 doctoral network students for a period of 36 months. Their training will be supported by 16 partners comprising 7 industrial and 9 academic partners from Spain, Germany, United Kingdom, France and Italy, offering a rich multidisciplinary and intersectoral environment.
GreenX3 will focus on the study of greener materials and their environmental impact, the development of novel environment-friendly industrial processes, and key enabling technologies (KETs) designed to enhance resource management and product quality. The joint presence of academic and non-academic partners with expertise comprising and not limited to materials/polymer chemistry, nanotechnology, pharmacy and pharmaceutical technology, entrepreneurship, sustainability and product development will provide an outstanding environment to train the next generation of researchers with strong focus on sustainable development, responsible production and waste reduction.
What we offer:
The doctoral position is situated at Université de Technologie de Compiègne (UTC), France, in the CNRS Laboratory for Enzyme and Cell Engineering (GEC), over a period of 36 months. The recruited researcher will be supervised by Prof. Karsten Haupt and Dr. Mirian Kubo. 50% of the research time will be spent with an industrial partner of GreenX3.
UTC is a technical university and at the same time one of France's most highly ranked engineering schools, and part of the prestigious Paris Sorbonne University cluster. The university has strong activities in applied research and very close contacts to Industry. The GEC laboratory is a CNRS research institute within the Bioengineering Department with some 70 members devoted to developments employing the general principles of bioresources, bioinspiration and biomimicry. This has for example resulted in the development of functional nanomaterials, biosensors, bioactive molecules and materials, and others, with applications in agriculture and food industries, in cosmetics, and in the biomedical field.

Within this doctoral research project, short term visits to other partners are foreseen. As per call requirements, the doctoral candidate will spend at least half of the total contract time in a non-academic environment.
The doctoral position DC8 is fully funded by the Marie Sklodowska Curie Action Industrial Doctorate GreenX3 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-DN-01-01). The monthly gross salary will comprise a living allowance, mobility allowance and, if applicable, a family allowance. Family allowance will be implemented if the doctoral candidate has or acquires family obligations (i.e. marriage or relationship with equivalent status to a marriage recognized by the legislation of the country or region where this relationship was formalized or dependent children who are actually being maintained by the researcher) during the action duration.

The successful candidate will be employed by a single, three years employment contract by CNRS offering social security, holiday rights, parental leave rights, pension provision, healthcare insurance and accident coverage at work. Researchers must be enrolled in the doctoral program of Université de Technologie de Compiègne and must fulfill the local requirements in order to obtain the diploma.
For more info on MSCA-DN-ID visit the website https://marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/actions/doctoral-ne….

Requirements
Research Field
Chemistry/Biochemistry/Polymer chemistry/Food chemistry
Education Level
Master Degree or equivalent
Skills/Qualifications
Qualifications / experience:
• The candidate must be eligible to embark on doctoral studies at the date of recruitment and may not already be in possession of a PhD or have successfully defended his/her thesis.
• M.Sc. Degree in life science (included but not limited to chemistry, biochemistry, food chemistry, biotechnology, etc) or a related field.
• Experience in at least one of the following areas: Materials chemistry, biopolymers, affinity technology, encapsulation
• Basic knowledge of natural product chemistry, microbial degradation, food microbiology
• Fluency in written and spoken English is a must.
• Practical experience in laboratory environment is a plus.
• Practical experience in molecularly imprinted polymers and biosensing is a plus.
• Basic knowledge of data analysis and Microsoft Office.
• Good organization and communication skills, willing to travel for short or longer periods
• Flexible and co-operative with a well-structured and autonomous working style

Developing smart encapsulation and packaging materials focused on chitosan films with antimicrobial and antioxidant properties DC8

This PhD project is part of the GreenX3 EU MSCA Doctoral Network (Industrial Doctorate).
The doctoral position is situated at Université de Technologie de Compiègne (UTC), France, in the CNRS Laboratory for Enzyme and Cell Engineering (GEC), over a period of 36 months. The recruited researcher will be supervised by Prof. Karsten Haupt and Dr. Mirian Kubo. 50% of the research time will be spent with an industrial partner of GreenX3.

The research project of DC8 will focus on the development of active packaging and encapsulation materials based on chitosan, with build-in antimicrobial and anti-oxidant properties, for food and other bioproducts. The project will be organized in three axes of study. First, the development of active packaging or encapsulation in the form of chitosan films, which is a biodegradable polysaccharide with intrinsic antimicrobial properties. Second, composites with molecularly imprinted polymer-based materials will be developed allowing for improved loading/release properties of the active principle. Special efforts will be dedicated to the prioritization of green chemistry and the use of functional biodegradable monomers. Third, the molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) component may optionally comprise an optical reporting (sensor) system for non-invasive quality assessment.

The main tasks within the advertised position are
(1) Design, preparation and characterization of bio-sourced food packaging materials
(2) Developing applications for vectorization of active principles or capturing of target molecules
(3) Developing build-in sensing properties