Background to the role

The Good Food Institute Europe (GFI Europe) is a nonprofit think tank at the forefront of the movement to transform meat production in order to solve some of the world’s biggest problems, from climate change and global hunger, to antibiotic resistance and animal suffering.

We work with scientists, businesses and policymakers to make plant-based and cultivated meat (grown directly from cells) delicious, affordable and accessible. Please check out the rest of our website, our 2025 Year in Review and our 2025 Europe Highlights blog post to find out more about who we are and what our charity does.

How you will make a difference

We need the best scientists in Europe to be engaged in plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation-enabled protein research and development. At GFI Europe, the goals of our SciTech work are to: 1) grow and steer the technical research community and 2) increase the research funding this community receives. 

To enable this, we are looking for a Science and Technology Research Analyst to lead a project to update our “State of the European alternative protein research ecosystem: funding, publications and patents” with 2026 data. This will involve applying your data analysis skills and knowledge of alternative protein science to generate insights and a holistic narrative to describe the evolution, characteristics, and relative competitiveness of the alternative protein field in Europe. The outputs will help current and future innovators understand how they can best contribute to the development of this field and provide recommendations for how other stakeholders, including public research funders, can best support the further development and growth of the space. We anticipate that at least 60% of this role will be dedicated to this project, primarily during December 2026-June 2027.

The remainder of your time would be focused on supporting with a range of activities across our Research Funding and Research Community teams to ensure that efforts and funding are allocated toward the highest-impact research areas to accelerate the adoption of alternative proteins and improve the sustainability of the food system. 

Your responsibilities will include:

• Lead and project manage the 2027 iteration of our annual State of the European Research Ecosystem outputs. This will include:
  • Conduct a data retrieval of 2026 grants, publications, and patents on topics relevant to alternative proteins and screen the results for inclusion/exclusion using an established methodology. 
  • Conduct a range of analyses on the individual datasets to determine the evolution, characteristics, and relative competitiveness of the alternative protein research field in Europe.
  • Lead the development of a range of project outputs including a webpage, regional deep dives, blogs, and potentially other GFI Europe reports or publications. 
  • Manage the project autonomously, applying good project management practice to set and meet deadlines and keep the right colleagues involved along the way.
• Support colleagues across our Policy, SciTech Research Funding, and Research Community teams to disseminate the outputs to key stakeholders across Europe, providing data, analysis, and briefing materials to inform funder lobbying, funder relationships, and regional ecosystem work (e.g. Nordics, DACH, UK, Spain, Portugal).
• Perform other tasks as required as a member of our small, nimble team. This will include contributing to other Science and Technology workstreams across our research funding and research community work.
• In conjunction with our Communications team, communicate about alternative proteins through science media and at scientific conferences.

Who we’re looking for

You must have:

• A passion for GFI’s philosophy and mission.
• A BSc (or equivalent) in a science or engineering field.
• An existing functional understanding of the principles, methods, equipment, and techniques used in plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation-made protein research and manufacturing.
• Strong data management skills (up to and including the ability to utilize programming or scripting languages (e.g., Python, R)) with the ability to analyse complex data and produce clear and accurate outputs. 
• Strong written and verbal communication skills (including demonstrated experience authoring outputs such as reports or research publications), and the ability to tailor messages to scientists, university administrators, policymakers, funding bodies, companies, and other relevant audiences. 
• Excellent networking, interpersonal, influencing, and relationship-building abilities, and the credibility and persuasiveness to represent GFI in front of important stakeholders, including academics, policymakers, and research funding bodies.
• Strong team spirit and open and collaborative instincts (you will be required to work closely with colleagues across other departments in GFI Europe and in our SciTech team around the world). 
• A can-do approach: a self-starter with the drive and initiative to take responsibility for delivering impact and an ability to see projects through to completion.
• Comfort working remotely.
• Our team’s common language is English, so you’ll need to be confident working in English.

The ideal candidate may also have some of the following, although these are absolutely not requirements:

• Strong project management skills, including experience delivering analytical work, written reports, or other types of publications.
• Experience with research ecosystem mapping software and/or methodologies (e.g., Dimensions AI, SCOPUS, bibliometrix, ggplot2).
• Experience working with data visualisation and/or design software (e.g. Datawrapper, Canva).
• The ability to work in European languages other than English, especially: German, French, Danish, Swedish. 

We want the best people and we don’t want biases holding us back. We strongly encourage people of every colour, orientation, age, gender, origin, and ability to apply. Because we value a diverse workplace, we prioritise an inclusive climate absent of discrimination and harassment during the application process and after you join the team.

Benefits and the fine print

• Terms of employment: Full-time (flexible hours), temporary for 11 months. Requests for part-time hours (30 hours/week or above) can be considered. Please state this in your application.
• Start date: between 7 and 14 December 2026
• Location:  Flexible – we will consider applicants who are based in one of the following countries: UK, Netherlands or Germany. 
• This is a remote role, and you will be able to work from home, or anywhere you choose. We are happy to consider supporting costs for co-working to enable you to work from an office if you wish. The whole GFI Europe team aims to get together in-person approximately twice per year for around 3-5 days at a time. Travel costs will be covered by GFI Europe within our travel policy.
• Salary: The salary and benefits package for all of our roles are researched and benchmarked based on similar nonprofit roles in the country/location of hire. Due to capacity, we cannot complete that research for all countries in advance, but an indicative salary is:
  • €45,965 – €52,162 gross/year, in addition to 8% holiday pay if based in the Netherlands. This range is an example based on a hire in the Netherlands and will be adjusted to match our benchmarking of the successful applicant’s country of work.
• Right to work requirements: The successful candidate must, by the start of the employment, have permission to work in the country where they are based.
• Application Deadline: 11 October 2026, 11.59pm CET. We will get back to all candidates after that date, no matter the outcome of their application. You should expect to hear back from us within about two weeks of the deadline.

Application process

Round	Timeline	Description	Expected Time Commitment
Application	Deadline: 11 October 2026, 11.59pm CET	Fill in the application form.	1 – 1.5 hours
Timed assignment	Mid October	Two to four questions simulating the type of work you’d be doing in the role.	1 – 2 hours
Interview	Early November	Interviews will be conducted remotely on Zoom. We know that interviews can be especially stressful for candidates. We’ve put together this guide so that you know exactly what to expect from our process and, hopefully, have a more relaxed experience.	1 – 1.5 hours

We want you to have every opportunity to shine and show us your talents – we are happy to make all the reasonable adjustments that we possibly can to make sure the assessment process works for you. Email us at europe-hiring@gfi.org.

Any questions?

If you have any questions about this role, please do reach out to us at europe-hiring@gfi.org.