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Job Title: Hair Fibre Scientist

Function: R&D – S&T, Beauty and Wellbeing Materials Engineering

Location: Port Sunlight Research Lab/ Materials Innovation Factory, MIF (University of Liverpool)

JOB PURPOSE

Unilever Beauty & Wellbeing is a €10 billion business with hair and skin care brands including Dove, Sunsilk, Tresemme and Vaseline. It is also home to Unilever’s Prestige portfolio of luxury brands such as Dermalogica, Hourglass and Living Proof, and Health & Wellbeing, a carefully crafted collection of vitamins, minerals and supplements brands including Liquid I.V. and OLLY. With more than 1 billion people using our products every day, we have an opportunity to use our scale for good. We’re embracing a new era of beauty and wellbeing. One that’s inclusive. Equitable. Regenerative. Positive. So that people and the planet can thrive together.

The role of the Science and Technology (S&T) pillar in Unilever is to deliver breakthrough technologies and differentiated innovations to meet the needs and preferences of our consumers around the world. We are developing new materials to provide functional benefits that out-perform the competition and build equity for our leading brands, whilst meeting our ambitious sustainability commitments.

Materials Engineering (ME) is a Beauty and Wellbeing S&T Platform, employing materials chemistry and physics to cosmetically modify, repair or enhance the body’s substrates. Increasingly, there are strong needs to quantify and evaluate technology benefits for the body’s substrates and products for supporting technology development. An opportunity has arisen for a degree-qualified Scientist to join our team working in the area of Hair Fibre Science across Port Sunlight and the Materials Innovation Factory.

The primary purpose of this role is to develop and apply mechanical and physical chemistry measurement techniques for evaluating and predicting benefits for B&W hair care technologies. The successful applicant will be part of the team developing exciting new technology and routes to its evaluation to generate new insights and support project deliveries. Candidates should have a background in physical sciences, materials science, polymer physics or biophysics.

The role is ideally suited to an energetic, self-motivated resourceful research scientist with strong people skills and good practical laboratory skills. Previous experience of working in a research team, either in academia or industry and in creating new measurement methodologies with proven impact in the business would be beneficial.

The role requires working across multi-disciplinary project teams where members contribute to achieving a common goal; an ideal candidate would have excellent people and communication skills.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Translate business need into technical hypotheses and integrate them into the activities of the research team.
• Build expertise within Hair Fibre measurement and data analysis.
• Design and conduct experiments to agreed timings and in accordance with all safety and operational protocols to evaluate technologies for changing hair fibre properties to deliver consumer benefits.
• Ensure critical kit remains operational through following SOPs, trouble-shooting issues and engaging with instrument suppliers and engineers.
• Co-ordinate work with external partners, including supervising contract staff and collaborating with academic experts.
• Keep accurate records of samples, experimental progress and data.
• Analysis of data and communication of results.
• Interpret the outcomes and relate these to hair fibre structure. Make recommendations for supporting technology development.
• Deliver verbal and written communication of results, key insights, developments and observations to project teams.

ALL ABOUT YOU

• BSc, MSc or PhD in a relevant science area (physical sciences, materials science, polymer physics or biophysics).
• Relevant experience and laboratory skills in measurement and data analysis (e.g. Data Fellowship).
• Experience in adoption of novel methodologies to generate insights.
• Working knowledge of good experimental design (including DoE) approaches preferable and ability to extract insights and conclusions from results
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills and an ability to convey scientific and project findings to audiences with varied backgrounds.
• Preferably knowledge of hair fibre structure and mechanics and of hair care formulations

Standards of Leadership:

Passion for High Performance, Personal Mastery, Agility, Purpose and Service

NOTES

About Unilever

Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Food, Home and Personal Care products with sales in over 190 countries and reaching 2 billion consumers a day. Unilever has more than 400 brands found in homes around the world, including Dove, Tresemme, Lynx, Lifebuoy, Shea Moisture, Persil, Domestos, Ben & Jerry’s, Magnum, Marmite, The Vegetarian Butcher, Graze and Pot Noodle.

Faced with the challenge of climate change and the need for human development, we want to move towards a world where everyone can live well and within the natural limits of the planet. That’s why our purpose is ‘to make sustainable living commonplace’

What We Offer

Not only do we offer a competitive salary and pension scheme, we also offer an annual bonus, subsidised gym membership, a discounted staff shop and shares. You’ll have the opportunity to work directly with our renowned and exciting brands in a flexible and hybrid working environment.

Whilst the role is advertised on a full-time basis, we would be happy to discuss possible flexible working options and what this may look like for you. We are a key advocate of wellbeing and offer a variety of support for our people including hubs, programmes and development opportunities. We strive to achieve a family-friendly and inclusive workplace and to, above all, create possibilities for all.

Diversity at Unilever is about inclusion, embracing differences, creating possibilities, and growing together for better business performance. We want to push boundaries, and have the flexibility needed to keep adapting in an ever-changing, more dynamic world. This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants, regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity.

As part of your hiring journey, we are happy to support requests for reasonable adjustments, to improve your recruitment experience.

To find out more, including more information about our Employee Resource Groups, please click here.

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How is Unilever tackling this?

Many of Unilever’s recruitment sites publish a warning to candidates about recruitment fraud. The Cyber Security team also proactively scan for signs of people setting up fake Unilever sites and act to close them down.

What can I do?

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