Publish Date: 17.02.2021
Category: Job vacancies
PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL JOB ANNOUNCEMENT
The advertised position is fully funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 951851.
The University of Ljubljana invites candidates to apply for the position of Senior Research Fellow - HEAD OF THE CONI CENTRE – ERA Chair Holder - for work on the project CONI (Grant Agreement Number 951851).
The starting gross salary is EUR 40,620.36 per year. Depending on the successful applicant's years of work experience, last previous position, EUR 8,000 additional renumeration, paid benefits (health insurance, subsidised transfer to work, meal allowance and vacation allowance), and the successful applicant's assigned pay grade at UL, the offered gross salary will be between EUR 53,000 and 63,000 per year.
Type of employment contract: employment for a fixed period up to 31 December 2025 with full-time working hours.
ERA Chair CONI Grant details
A new multidisciplinary Centre for Neuroinformatics (NI) is being established at the University of Ljubljana (UL), Slovenia supported by the European Commission Work Programme Horizon 2020 – WIDESPREAD-06-2020 – ERA Chair Grant. The Centre for NI will be an organisational unit within the UL's Research & Development Centre (RDC), headed by UL's vice Rector of Research, that provides an organisational and legal framework to promote, facilitate and sustain multidisciplinary research, open innovation development, and teaching or training at UL's Faculties. The main goal of the Centre will be to integrate NI domains of software development, image analysis, artificial intelligence, human graphics interface design and clinical neuroscience to create protocols, methods and information technology (IT) tools to develop clinical and clinical research pathways for improved diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease patients.
The position of the ERA Chair Holder (ECH), the Head of the Centre for NI, is open for applications. Applicants are expected to be outstanding researchers in any area of NI, with excellent administrative, organisational, project management and human management skills and experience. The ECH will hold the position of a Research Counsellor at the UL. The ECH will (a) be able to hire 6 postdoctoral associates from the Grant's budget; (b) lead her/his own research group; (c) implement the Grants deliverables and impacts; (d) conduct independent research in the topic of her/his choice at the Centre for NI; (e) start, as soon as possible, to submit independently research proposals to appropriate public calls; (f) be responsible for dissemination, exploitation and communication of the Grant's deliverables and impacts; (g) participate in organisational bodies at the UL and UL's Faculties relevant to her/his teaching, research, innovation, managerial and organisational Grant obligations.
Expected impacts made by the ECH and his/her research group are: (1) institutional and structural changes within UL allowing for its full participation in the European Research Area; (2) increased attractiveness of UL for international excellence and mobility of researchers; (3) increased research excellence of UL in the field of NI illustrated quantitatively and qualitatively through indicators such as publications in peer reviewed journals, collaboration agreements with industry, intellectual property, new innovative products and services and (4) increased capability of UL to compete successfully for internationally competitive research funding in the field of NI.
The ECH will join a vibrant Slovenian research and clinical NI community, which offers unique research infrastructure, access to research data, access to diverse pool of students and ample opportunities for conducting clinical research and integration into clinical practice. The ECH will be supported by the Grant's Executive and Advisory Boards, by UL's Human Resources Service, Investments Office, Knowledge Transfer Office, Office for Doctoral study, Office for International Relations, Office for Research Activity, Projects Office, and Research & Development Centre. Implementation of the Grant's obligations is monitored by the Centre's for NI Council. Members of the Centre's Council will (a) assist integration of the Head of the Centre for NI and his/her research group into the research/innovation and undergraduate/graduate teaching/training activities at the Faculties of Medicine, Mathematics and Physics, Computer & Information Science, and Arts and (b) introduce the Head of the Centre for NI and his/her research group to the UL's international NI network. The UL's vice Rector of Research will support the ECH on strategic, key issues relevant to the Centre for NI's long-term sustainability.
The ECH’s and full-time team members' positions are expected to continue after the Grant, subject to satisfactory performance, availability of funding and tenured positions, to support the UL’s long-term sustainability of neuroinformatics training, research development & open innovation excellence and continuation of UL’s institutional structural changes. Therefore, is expected of the ECH to help securing funding for continuation of the Centre for NI after termination of the Grant.
Additional information:
https://www.uni-lj.si/news/news/2020061014495274/
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/951851
Criteria for Appointment to the Titles at UL in English:
Job description
(1) Leading, planning and organising the Centre's management, research, open innovation and teaching/training activities.
(2) Establishment of a multidisciplinary research team in the field of neuroinformatics (NI) covering software development, image analysis, artificial intelligence, human graphics interface design and clinical neuroscience.
(3) Other activities such as: (a) analysis of current conditions and implementation of necessary structural changes and introduction of new research management & administration skills at UL; (b) implementation of an improved long-term human resources strategy aimed at promoting gender equality, professional and career development of researchers; (c) increasing the research excellence of UL, linking UL and its researchers to industry; (d) preparing proposals and applying for research funding; (e) promotion of UL to increase its international attractiveness and visibility; (f) technology transfer; (g) initiation and implementation of international projects and cooperation activities, (h) publishing of research in high impact journals; (i) directing the research focus of the Centre towards the most appropriate NI research topics; (j) activities in education/training and establishment of new study fields at UL; and organisation of international NI summer schools and NI workshops at the UL.
Conditions for the position, expected competences, academic record and supporting documents
(1) The position is open to applicants with a citizenship of an EU or a non-EU country.
(2) A PhD in biochemistry, biology, computer science, informatics, mathematics, medicine, neurosciences, physics or statistics is mandatory. Only qualifications issued by EU Member State authorities or qualifications recognised as equivalent by the relevant EU Member State authorities will be accepted. In case of the latter, the proof of recognition of equivalence by the relevant EU Member State authorities must be presented.
(3) Applicants should match the profile definitions of R4 researchers (according to the European Framework for Research Careers, see link above) and must be not only an excellent researcher but also an excellent research manager as stipulated in the WIDESPREAD-06-2020 – ERA Chair call.
(4) Documented and verifiable (by providing contact details of three referees under (9)) 5 years-experience as a team leader of researchers and/or open innovation projects in NI, in at least one of the five domains relevant to the field of NI: software development, image analysis, artificial intelligence, human graphics interface design or clinical neuroscience.
(5) Documented and verifiable (by providing contact details of three referees under (9)) expertise in NI domains as evidenced by: (a) first author or leading author publications in high-impact journals, (b) management of post-doc research teams; (c) leadership of national and international research projects.
(6) Documented and verifiable (by providing contact details of three referees under (9)) ability of teaching/training skills and experience and research management skills and experience in the field of NI.
(7) Documented and verifiable academic record equivalent to the level of a Research Counsellor for the fields relevant to the domains of software development, image analysis, artificial intelligence, human graphics interface design or clinical neuroscience. Only qualifications issued by EU Member State authorities or qualifications recognised as equivalent by the relevant EU Member State authorities will be accepted. In case of the latter, the proof of recognition of equivalence by the relevant EU Member State authorities must be presented.
(9) Three references on the candidates suitability for the advertised position (with contact and email addresses of the referees) should be included with the application. For shortlisted applicants, the referees will be contacted to provide additional verification of documents for conditions (4)-(6), (12) and (13).
(10) The selected applicant needs to qualify for the position of Research Counsellor, for one of the fields relevant to the domains of software development, image analysis, artificial intelligence, human graphics interface design or clinical neuroscience, to be employed at UL. The applicants do not need to have a UL habilitation title when they apply. However, they will need to meet the habilitation requirements, as laid down by the Criteria for Appointment to the Titles at UL (see link above), to be conferred the title of Research Counsellor (i.e. the necessary number of academic achievements listed under (11)).
(11) All applicants, either from EU or non-EU countries, should submit in English their (a) CV; (b) a full list of publications in international, refereed journals; (c) a separate list of their 10 most impactful (according to the journal's impact factor and/or first author/leading author journal publications in the past 10 years); (d) a list of up to 10 national and international projects/grants they coordinated (including information of the funding agency, grant number and amount of funding); (e) their current Web of Science personal number of citations; (f) their current Web of Science personal H-index; and (g) a list of mentored PhD students with titles of theirs’ PhD theses and names of Universities that awarded the PhD titles.
(12) Documented and verifiable language skills. Candidates must have an advanced or a higher English proficiency level and at least an intermediate proficiency level of another official language of any EU member state. Only language proficiency qualifications issued by EU Member State authorities or qualifications recognised as equivalent by the relevant EU Member State authorities will be accepted.
(14) Documented and verifiable education, qualifications and experience. Only qualifications issued by EU Member State authorities and qualifications recognised as equivalent by the relevant EU Member State authorities will be accepted. In case of the latter, the proof of recognition of equivalence by the relevant EU Member State authorities must be presented. Only duly documented professional activity (i.e. remunerated employment or self- employment) is considered. Fellowships and grants can be counted as professional experience.
(15) Digital copies of documents, submitted as proof of qualifications and experience requested in conditions 1-14, should be written in English, or accompanied by an English translation if not issued in English.
Desirable competences and skills
(8) Shortlisting criteria are documented and verifiable evidence of (a) an international peer recognition through inclusion on journal boards, grants committees, research awards etc.; (b) a high- index (c) an MD graduate degree with a postgraduate specialisation in neurology or a PhD in the area of NI.
(13) Documented and verifiable (by providing contact details of three referees under (9)) essential general job skills: (a) experience of working in multicultural and multidisciplinary teams; (b) ability to -work well independently and under pressure, -cope with a high workload and respond quickly to new demands; -have good time management, -communicate with internal and external personnel at all levels; -meet tight deadlines and multiple priorities with minimal supervision; -use Web-based tools for creating, sharing, and collaborating on project work; -deal with sensitive information with discretion and to maintain confidentiality; (c) excellent written and oral communication skills, interpersonal skills, networking abilities; (d) certified or demonstrated high level computer literacy skills with MS Office or equivalent software.
Conditions for the selected candidate
The selected applicant has to pass a mandatory health exam, arranged by the UL, before his or her employment.
Probationary period for the advertised position is 3 months.
Application details
Applications are accepted from February 19 to April 20, 2021.
Candidates should send their applications, with attached supporting documents, to the e-mail address: rektorat@uni-lj.si, reference CONI.
Application documentation should be ordered and structured according to the listed conditions (1-15) and must include proof of fulfilment for all conditions except condition (8). Condition 8 is a shortlisting condition and only applicants that fulfil condition (8) should provide the necessary proof of fulfilment. Incomplete applications, or applications not structured according to conditions 1-15, or applications submitted after the application deadline will not be considered. Applications should include the applicant’s e-mail address in the contact details.
Further information For further information please write to coni@mf.uni-lj.si
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
UL is an equal opportunity employer. All aspects of employment including the decision to hire, promote, discipline, or discharge, will be based on competence, performance, and business needs. UL does not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other status protected under EU or Slovenian law.