Bc Regional Innovation Chair in Sustainable Horticulture

**Competition ID**:

- 3877**Internal Closing Date**:

- March 5, 2025**External Closing Date**:

- March 5, 2025**# of Openings**:

- 1- **Salary Information**:

- Faculty Pay Scale**Employment Type**:

- Permanent Full Time**Workplace Type**:

- On-Site**Travel Frequency**:

- Occasional travel between campuses is required.**Employee Group**:

- Faculty (Kwantlen Faculty Association)**Days of Work (BCGEU)**:
**Hours of Work (BCGEU)**:
**Hours per Week (BCGEU)**:
**BC Regional Innovation Chair in Sustainable Horticulture, Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU)**
**Faculty of Science, KPU and affiliated with Institute for Sustainable Horticulture**

**Position Type**: Regular 100%

**Position Start**: September 1, 2025

Competition ID: 3887

KPU proudly offers all learners opportunities to achieve success in a diverse range of programs that blend theory and practice, critical understanding, and social and ethical awareness necessary for good citizenship and rewarding careers. KPU strives to implement initiatives that will attract, support, engage, and retain KPU’s people and create an environment where all employees see themselves as contributing to student learning.

**FACULTY OF SCIENCE OVERVIEW**

KPU serves communities in the South Fraser region and beyond. A leader in innovative education with a teaching-focused mandate, KPU offers all learners opportunities to achieve the highest standards of academic performance.

Within KPU, the Faculty of Science has over 1,500 full-time students and more than 200 faculty members and instructors from across the natural and applied sciences. The Faculty of Science includes the School of Horticulture, and eight other departments offering over 30 programs at the undergraduate level, at four KPU campuses. The Faculty is also home to several active researchers across multiple campuses.

The Faculty of Science offers experiential learning through hands-on curriculum, co-ops and research collaboration opportunities with KPU’s Institute for Sustainable Horticulture, Institute for Sustainable Food Systems, and the Applied Genomics Centre. The Faculty is home to over a hectare of horticulture field lab with research and teaching greenhouses in Langley, a state-of-the art teaching brewery in Langley, and a working farm in Richmond.

For more information about the Faculty of Science, please visit our website at: kpu.ca/science.

**INSTITUTE FOR SUSTAINBLE HORTICULTURE OVERVIEW**

The Institute for Sustainable Horticulture (ISH) was created in 2004 to be a partnership between academia, B.C.'s horticultural industries and the community to improve ecosystem resilience by providing tools and strategies for agriculture and landscapes through applied research, innovation, knowledge sharing, and collaborations. The vision of ISH is a future in which the agriculture and landscape sectors provide exemplary leadership in building and sustaining healthy ecosystems.

A core research program at the Institute is the development of microbial biological pest and disease management products as well as other bio-products that improve the resilience and sustainability of horticulture. Other research themes include soil microbial health, new plant production systems, clean energy for greenhouse operations, and agri-tech innovations related to sustainability of the agriculture and landscape sectors.
Infrastructure at ISH includes a 600M2 laboratory with fungal mass production rooms, insect rearing rooms, a small molecular lab, laboratory work space, growth chambers, -80 freezer, and related equipment. The research greenhouse has four 128M2 individual growing compartments, is partially geothermal and solar heated, and generates some solar electric energy. Staff at ISH includes a Director, a Laboratory Research Coordinator, a Research Greenhouse Coordinator, two PhD researchers, several technicians, students and a Post Doctoral Fellow. The team is cohesive and supportive of each other and is looking forward to welcoming the new BC Regional Innovation Chair.

**POSITION OVERVIEW**
- are outstanding and innovative world-class researchers whose accomplishments have made a major impact in their field;
- are recognized internationally as leader in their field;
- have a superior record of attracting and supervising, undergraduate, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows;
- are expected to attract, develop and retain excellent trainees, students and future researchers;
- are proposing an original, innovative research program of the highest quality.

The successful applicant will teach and supervise courses, including capstone, research or thesis projects for undergraduate or graduate students.

**DUTIES**
- Integrate with the teaching, scholarship, and service activities in the Faculty of Science at KPU;
- Attract and develop applied research and innovation partnerships and funding to KPU;
- Provide sound scientific and technical oversight of research and innovation projects;
- Contribute to the collabor