Senior Scientific Officer

Posting date:	12 June 2025
Salary:	£41,220 to £49,020 per year
Additional salary information:	National £41,220 - £45,400 London £44,500 - £49,020 For details of our pay on appointment policy, please see below under the heading ‘Salary’.
Hours:	Full time
Closing date:	24 June 2025
Location:	York
Company:	Government Recruitment Service
Job type:	Permanent
Job reference:	410600/4

Summary

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is the UK government department responsible for safeguarding our natural environment, supporting our world-leading food and farming industry, and sustaining a thriving rural economy. Our broad remit means we play a major role in people's day-to-day life, from the food we eat, and the air we breathe, to the water we drink.

This role is based within the Science Strategy & Profession team within Defra’s Science & Analysis Group, aimed at putting science, analysis and data at the heart of Defra to enable optimal decision-making. The Science Strategy & Profession team is responsible for providing strategic direction and embedding fit-for-purpose science governance to support decision-making, building Defra’s science capability, supporting engagement within and across Defra’s science and engineering community, and embedding effective policies and processes to support the management, publication and accessibility of Defra’s R&D.

This role will be responsible for leading on delivery of business critical research integrity and assurance functions and tools for enabling robust evidence underpinning Defra policy.

Encouraging diverse applicants

We recognise the challenges that people with (multiple) protected characteristics may experience on the job market and in their career progression. We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible, and we hope to attract applications from underrepresented groups.

SSO – Science policy and capability:

This role provides opportunities to work flexibly across Science Strategy and Profession priorities to ensure we have the science tools, policies and processes to grow Defra’s capability to deliver effective, high quality scientific evidence and advice to Defra policy.

Examples of current work priorities include:

• Driving continuous improvement to the science system and functions across Defra derived from Research Integrity Concordat priorities (for example Research Ethics, AI and quality assurance), building relationships across professional bodies, government and organisations to develop best practice.

• Strengthening Defra’s approach to ensuring open and accessible publication of Defra-funded R&D outputs and continuous improvement in standards and protocols to optimise the impact of R&D. This includes:

- Running Defra’s Publications Assurance Panel,

- Working in partnership with Defra group organisations to development new approaches/repositories for improving accessibility, impact and value from Defra group R&D.

- working across our science expert communities to improve knowledge sharing tools and exchange.

• Providing flexible support to Defra’s R&D Fellowship programme, including shaping the future direction of the programme, supporting advertising and selection processes, and developing the learning and development programme for fellows.

Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme

About Disability Confident

A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to Disability Confident.