Manager – Rice Breeding

ICRISAT seeks applications from dynamic and innovative young professionals as Manager – Rice Breeding to work with the Rice Breeding Innovations team whose aim is, to be globally aligned, rice breeding, community of practice, unified by a set of jointly developed standards for making breeding decisions consistent with the demands of regional farmers and other value chain stakeholders.

The candidate will work in close collaboration with the Rice Breeding team of IRRI-NARES-Private sector partners across the projects for the seamless delivery of research activities. The position is within the Rice Breeding Innovations Platform-South Asia Region.

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is the world’s premier research organization dedicated to reducing poverty and hunger through rice science, improving the health and welfare of rice farmers and consumers, and protecting rice-growing environments for future generations. For more information, visit www.irri.org

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in the drylands of Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Covering 6.5 million square kilometers of land in 55 countries, the semi-arid or dryland tropics is home to over 2 billion people, and 644 million of these are the poorest of the poor.

ICRISAT, established in 1972, is a member of the CGIAR Consortium. ICRISAT and its partners help empower these poor people to overcome poverty, hunger and a degraded environment through better agriculture. ICRISAT is headquartered in Hyderabad, Telangana State, in India, with two regional hubs (Nairobi, Kenya and Bamako, Mali) and country offices in Niger, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Ethiopia and Mozambique.

ICRISAT conducts research on six highly nutritious drought-tolerant crops: chickpea, pigeonpea, pearl millet, finger millet, sorghum and groundnut. ICRISAT envisions prosperous, food-secure and resilient dryland tropics by reducing poverty, hunger, malnutrition and environmental degradation in the dryland tropics through partnership-based international agricultural research for development that embodies Science with a Human Face. For more details, see www.icrisat.org 

Responsibilities:

• Implementation of hybrids rice breeding program with the public and private partnership, streamline and disseminate the new hybrids/parentals lines in HRDC partners.
• Maintenance of breeding for parental lines (A × B and A × R) for the hybrid breeding program and purification of potential germplasm/accessions for the quality research
• Mainstreaming biofortification breeding through genomic selection and innovative breeding.
• Oversee and coordinate day-to-day activity to support breeding experiments, demonstrations, and other best CoPs at NARES and PPPs.
• Multi-location network coordination towards monitoring, efficient generation of high-quality datasets, data compilation, statistical analysis, and report preparation.
• Participate in capacity building and training activities to enhance the capacity building of partners.
• Coordinate closely with the IRRI HQ team (RBI Platform and technology transfer team), IRRI-SA Hub Team, ISARC team, NARES other public collaborators.
• Breeding efforts towards managing core hybrid breeding activities and participation in project development for strengthening regional breeding program at IRRI SA Hub.
• Managing day-to-day operations related to lab management (molecular breeding and grain nutritional quality lab) and managing human resources for all ongoing projects.
• Perform all other related duties that may be assigned from time to time by the supervisor.

Qualifications and Experience:

• M.Sc.(Ag) Genetics and plant breeding with 8-10 years of experience in rice breeding/hybrid rice breeding/molecular breeding.
• Experience in innovative breeding approaches for rice improvement supported with publications in high impact journals
• Extensive experience in coordinating the research projects with the research team and human resource management
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English
• Good experience of working in Multi-cultural environment 

General:

This is a Scientific and Managerial Group (SMG) cadre position for 2 years’ (24 months) renewable depending on the functioning of the incumbent, funding availability, and also the Institute’s ongoing requirement for the position. 

How to apply:

Applicants should apply on or before 19 April 2021 with latest Curriculum Vitae, and the names and contact information of three referees who are knowledgeable about your professional qualifications and work experience. All applications will be acknowledged; however only short listed candidates will be contacted.

“ICRISAT is an equal opportunity employer”