Open Call for the Directorship of the ZCAM

Internal code: 
ZCAM/2009
Publication date: 
November, 2009
Deadline: 
Friday, 21 December, 2012
Status: 
Closed

ARAID Foundation (a Foundation created by the Government of Aragon for the research and development) seeks a Director for its new research center ZCAM (Zaragoza scientific Center for Advanced Modelling). This is a new Center that will be the Spanish node of CECAM with the mission of fostering particle based and molecular computer simulations. Closely linked to different Spanish research communities and initiatives and the Institute for Biocomputation and Physics of Complex Systems (BIFI) of the Zaragoza University, the new Center will act as a national focal point for particle based simulations and research and for intense international collaboration. The ZCAM will function in a coordinate way within the new multinodal structure of CECAM (Centre Européen de Calcul Atomique et Moléculaire), www.cecam.org.

The Director will be a senior scientist at the level of University Professor. He/she should have an excellent scientific reputation in one of the computational sciences with a background in Physics, Chemistry, or Biology. The Director should have the ambition and the ability to integrate the Spanish related scientific communities and thus grow the new Center as an European reference as well as running a strong personal research group. To this end, he/she will be expected to apply for Spanish, European and other international funding of research projects. The Director will be appointed to establish and lead this Centre for a period of four years, renewable once. For the selection of the Director, the ARAID Foundation will seek advice from an independent international committee participated by a CECAM representative.

Full Job Description:

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

The Director will have the following responsabilities

  • Grow the centre into a reference Spanish center for simulation research, training, graduate education, and software infrastructure.
  • Integrate within the center activities the broad and diverse Spanish computational science communities.
  • Achieve a full imbrication of the center within the multinodal structure of CECAM.
  • Lead a strong research group.
  • Seek actively additional financial support for her/his research group and further activities in the center.
  • Enhance the reputation of the Centre through engagement in public life and organisation of lectures, seminars and conferences and the dissemination of knowledge to wider society.
  • To take up residence in Zaragoza is required for the candidate.

Profile:

The successful candidate should fit the following general profile:

  • Senior scientist at the level of full University Professor (or a position with comparable scientific and management responsibilities), in a relevant discipline.
  • Significant experience in academia or similarly complex environments.
  • Excellent scientific reputation in one of the computational sciences with a background in Physics, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering or Biology.
  • Proven capability to develop and influence the subject nationally and internationally.
  • An international reputation for scholarship and outstanding research in the field.
  • A substantial record of peer-reviewed publications of international standing.
  • A successful record in securing funding for research.
  • Excellent communication and inter-personal skills.
  • Demonstrated achievement in a leadership function.
  • Experience in establishing and implementing strategic plans.
  • Demonstrated capacity to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries and foster a culture of inquiry, collegiality and creativity.
  • Ability to implement knowledge transfer from/to enterprise and  to spread research results and scholarship in public life.

Salary:

The salary will be in the range from 60.000€ to 110.000€ per annum depending on the candidate qualifications and performance. the salary will be negotiated individually.

Further Information for Candidates

The University

University of Zaragoza is a large and diverse university whose origin dates back to 1583. There are over 35,000 students including over 850 international students from more than 30 countries.

The ZCAM will be situated in a new building including other three Institutions: The Institute of Nanoscience of Aragon (INA), The Institute for Biocomputation and Physics of Complex Systems (BIFI) an The Aragon Institute of Engineering Research (I3A). The center is equipped with computational facilities including e-connection with the Mare Nostrum Spanish Supercomputing network and SGI Altix Supercomputing.

CECAM

CECAM (European Center for Atomic and Molecular Simulation) is an organization that aims to strengthen and integrate European research in the area of computational science. It is supported by scientific institutions and Research Councils from various European Countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the UK). CECAM main focus is the development of modern large-scale computational tools in numerous fields such as nanophysics, biophysics and biochemistry, soft matter or material physics and chemistry. The core activities of CECAM are the organization of workshops and tutorials and the hosting of researchers. More information on these activities and on the history of CECAM can be found on The CECAM website www.cecam.org.

BIFI

BIFI, with a total amount of 3 million euros budget per year (researchers’ salaries not included) is a research institute founded in 2002 at the University of Zaragoza, which promotes interdisciplinarity to face the big challenges of innovation and development. For this purpose, BIFI has the input of researchers from different fields. In particular, supercomputing experts, physicists working in materials science, quantum chemistry and complex networks, and biologists working in structural problems, like drug development and protein folding, work in close cooperation at BIFI. For the main research line see bifi.unizar.es.

Application procedure

Applications must be downloaded from our Web site www.araid.es and submitted by e-mail to araid@araid.es before 14.00 h (GMT) of December 21th 2009.

The application must include:

  • The application form
  • A single .pdf or .word file containing the candidate’s CV with copies of your 5 best publications