At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead scientific initiatives to shape Scotland's food safety and public health nutrition.
- Company: Food Standards Scotland, a key player in food safety and public health.
- Benefits: Opportunity to influence policy, collaborate with experts, and enhance your professional profile.
- Other info: Engage with stakeholders and promote scientific excellence across the food industry.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on food safety and public health in Scotland.
- Qualifications: Accomplished scientist with expertise in food safety and policy development.
The predicted salary is between 75000 - 117800 £ per year.
Are you the scientific leader who can help shape Scotland’s food safety future? Applications are invited from suitably qualified, accomplished scientists for this 2-5 year secondment opportunity as Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) for Food Standards Scotland (FSS).
The CSA for FSS will be a senior, independent Scientific Adviser, who will advise FSS’s CEO and Board on all scientific matters relating to the organisation’s statutory responsibilities and the delivery of its strategic objectives. FSS’s CSA will provide strategic science leadership for FSS; supporting its senior scientists in the provision of expert oversight and assurance for all of the organisation’s research, surveillance, monitoring and risk assessment functions; ensuring the evidence base used to underpin policy on food safety and public health nutrition is robust and delivers maximum impact.
In line with other CSA roles across government, it will provide an independent challenge function to FSS, helping to further embed scientific evidence at the centre of policy development and decision-making across the organisation. FSS’s CSA is an outward facing role, with responsibility for representing FSS’s use of science and evidence to key stakeholders, the media and public, including during incidents.
It will promote and champion the work of FSS’s scientists; supporting learning and development and driving engagement across the wider scientific community and the food industry, to maintain and strengthen FSS’s reputation as a highly regarded science and evidence‑based organisation.
The CSA for FSS will contribute to the existing network of independent scientific advisers in Scottish Government to support the CSA for Scotland in ensuring that there are mechanisms in place to ensure policy making in Scotland is underpinned by the best science available.
The post will work particularly closely with the Scottish Government’s CSA for Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture (ENRA) to promote the use of systems thinking and evidence that enables policy makers to understand the interactions and trade-offs between food chain sustainability and resilience, food security, dietary health and food safety in Scotland. It will also collaborate with the Food Standards Agency’s CSA in areas of shared policy responsibility and scientific interest to ensure coordination and alignment across the UK in line with the Memorandum of Understanding between the two organisations.
Chief Scientific Adviser for Food Standards Scotland employer: Scottish Government
Food Standards Scotland is an exceptional employer, offering a unique opportunity for scientific leaders to influence food safety policy in Scotland. With a strong commitment to employee development and a collaborative work culture, FSS fosters an environment where innovative ideas thrive, ensuring that your contributions have a meaningful impact on public health and nutrition. Located at the heart of Scotland's governance, this role provides unparalleled access to key stakeholders and the chance to champion scientific excellence within the food industry.
