Description of Hosting Institution (UJA – Spain)

Jaén University (UJA) was created in 1993 and is in the Top 50 of the world’s best young universities according to THE (Times Higher Education). This ranking analyzes aspects such as teaching, research work, the university’s international outreach, or integration into industry. Besides, the UJA has received the distinction of Campus of International Excellence in the fields of Agrifood (CEIA3) and Climate Change (CamBio), plus it also leads the Andalusian CEI project on historical heritage PatrimoniUN10.

Jaén University has five faculties (Social and Legal Sciences; Humanities and Education Sciences; Health Sciences; Experimental Sciences and Social Work) and two higher polytechnic schools for engineering (Linares and Jaén). In turn, these centers are organized into 35 departments. It also has three Postgraduate educational centers (Doctorate School, Advanced Study Center in Modern Languages and Postgraduate Study Center).

In regards to its research, there are five specialized centers at Jaén University. Besides, the full picture of the over 100 UJA groups covers the following research fields of expertise (https://www.ujaen.es/servicios/ofipi/uja-ri-expertise): Agrifood (AGR); Biology (BIO); Health (CTS); Social Sciences, Business, Law (SEJ); Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics (FQM); Humanities (HUM); Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences (RNM); Information and Communications Technology (TIC); and Engineering Production Technology (TEP).

As far the UJA hosting offer is concerned, Prof. EULOGIO CASTRO GALIANO (ecastro@ujaen.es) would be willing to host post-doctoral researchers that are eventually funded through the H2020 MSCA-IF 2019 call for applications to be part of the following research team:

UJA hosting research group (https://bit.ly/2HHK18e)

The research activity of the Group “Chemical and Environmental Engineering” covers a range of topics including:

• Biorefinery from lignocellulosic residues

Use of forest, agricultural and agroindustrial residues as feedstock for the production of biofuels and other chemicals. Fractionation of biomass. Fermentation of hemicellulosic sugars.

• Removal of heavy metal from liquid effluents

Biosorption of heavy metals, particularly using microorganisms isolated from wastewater. Batch and continuous tests. Interaction metal-microorganism.

• New ceramic materials from agroindustrial residues

Valorisation of agricultural and industrial residues as raw material for new, sustainable ceramic materials. Technological characterization of the new building materials.

• Oil and fats technology. Olive oil

Study of improvement in the olive oil production process to increase oil yield and oil organoleptic features. Valorisation of the residues of the olive oil factory. Environmental issues.

www.ujaen.es/investiga/tep233

Project description

We are interested in incorporating a post doctoral researcher to work in the development of the biorefinery concept based on agricultural residues. The main activities will be the pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation for ethanol production, but also the study of the production of other added-value compounds such as xylitol, natural antioxidants, oligosaccharides and so on.

The Research Group is well-equipped technically and enjoys an extensive international relationship with other groups.

This is an opportunity to join a young, multinational research team composed by chemists, chemical engineers, economists, and environmentalists working in an exciting topic.

Application procedure

CV, Motivation letter and Summary of project proposal (250 words) by 14th June 2019 to ofipi@ujaen.es. Further information regarding the application requirements can be found at https://ec.europa.eu/research/mariecurieactions/actions/individual-fellowships_en & https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/msca-if-2019.