Scientific Training Officer

at the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics. Closing date: 20 March 2023.

SciLifeLab (www.scilifelab.se) is a hub for life science research in Sweden and a collaboration between Swedish universities. Everyone at SciLifeLab is employed at one of the partner universities. Since 2013, SciLifeLab has been assigned by the Swedish government to operate national infrastructure, to provide cutting-edge life science technologies and -expertise to Swedish researchers, and to be a top international centre for research in health- and environment sciences. SciLifeLab also operates a program for pandemic laboratory preparedness on a government assignment, and a large research programme for Data-Driven Life Sciences with eleven partner organisations. is a distributed governmental national research infrastructure in technology- and data-driven life sciences. To date, SciLifeLab is situated across 6 Swedish sites and holds 10 platforms, the Training Hub and the Data Centre, which includes over 40 units/facilities and more than 450 staff-scientists in its working environment. 

The position is placed at Stockholm University at the Department of Biophysics and Biochemistry

The successful candidate(s) will be working at the SciLifeLab Training Hub which was launched in January 2023 and is a core entity within SciLifeLab with responsibilities to establish services, support and resources in technology- and data-driven life science training.

Our assignment is national and the vision is to enable SciLifeLab to deliver high-quality, openly available and FAIR training activities to the life science community. The Training Hub will provide the support, training, services and resources and will work in close collaboration with major national and international organisations and research infrastructures for this to be a reality.

Main responsibilities

Working at the Training Hub, you will be part of the core of Sweden’s life science infrastructure and get the opportunity to actively shape how lifelong learning and training from a research infrastructure integrates and enables the Swedish life science research community. You will work in a small core team of training experts and connect to a wider ecosystem of researchers and staff scientists across the platforms and SciLifeLab sites. Training and lifelong learning is rapidly growing and the impact of training from a Research Infrastructure is more and more evident. The major task now is to build a national framework for life science lifelong learning which includes the technical infrastructure of the training platform and the people infrastructure of the community. We look forward to having you onboard on this journey.

This role encompasses four areas of Training Hub work; 1) core team activities 2) consolidation and dissemination, 3) coordination, training and support, and 4) community building. As part of the Training Hub, you will support the SciLifeLab community with training expertise

Training Hub core team activities

• Monitoring material and courses for the purposes of statistics, quality and assurance
• Proactively promoting training opportunities on social media, websites and through other available channels
• Interacting nationally and internationally with relevant stakeholders (funded projects, training working groups, etc.).

Training consolidation and dissemination

• Mapping and consolidating existing training material, courses and trainers relevant across SciLifeLab ecosystem
• Encourage SciLifeLab Infrastructure experts and researchers to co-create openly available training material and onboarding materials to the training platform for dissemination
• Connect and share training material with externally linked SciLifeLab initiatives
• Making the training materials and courses openly available.

Training coordination, training and support

• Identifying means of support for trainers e.g. Train-the-Trainer courses and sharing training best practices
• Assisting trainers with the development of the material and ensuring meeting the needs if their target audience
• Part of training consultations and drop-ins (Bring-your-own-course events)
• Drafting training definitions, policy documents, guidelines and best practices
• Establishing learning paths.

Training community building

• Identifying opportunities for synergistic training events across SciLifeLab ecosystem e.g. across platforms and projects as well as nationally/internationally e.g. training within EMBL or other European linked collaborative partners
• Community building, coordinate training and increase the trainer pool of instructors for across SciLifeLab ecosystem.

Qualification requirements

Training Hub aims to hire 1-2 open, empathic, and creative colleagues to consolidate and support lifelong learning and training across the SciLifeLab Research Infrastructure ecosystem. The positions will be as Bioinformaticians with special focus on training and community building. Strong emphasis will be placed on training and community building profiles.

We envision the applicant to have:

• A strong engagement and interest in training
• A PhD or a Master in addition to several years of working experience in a life science area
• Experience in bioinformatics, data stewardship, data science or other related domain are an added value.

Other qualifications are:

• Highly organised with the ability to document actions and processes, translate objectives into specific tasks, and prioritise and assign/delegate tasks
• Ability to engage other people to contribute is needed. This as community building and establishing trusted links across many user groups is a central part of this role
• Familiarity with working on open projects (this could be open source, open research, or other openly shared collaborative work)
• Experience with Github and some bioinformatics will be a plus as the Training Hub is to build and establish services and resources for the community to make use of
• Ability to learn high-level complex concepts quickly
• Dedicated to open, trusting, and collaborative work; and understanding the importance of communication for that kind of work environment.

Personal suitability will strongly affect the recruitment for this position. The applicant shall have the ability to work well together in teams. You should show initiative and have good interpersonal- and communication skills. As a person, you should be flexible, creative, and service-oriented. You should also be quality-conscious and goal-oriented.

Terms of employment

This is a full-time, 12 months funded position. The office environment is vibrant with a mix of bioinformaticians, data stewards, systems developers, data scientists and researchers. However, most daily work will be conducted remotely due to the team being distributed across Sweden. Therefore your geographical location within Sweden can be discussed. In addition you will have the opportunity to use 20% of your working time on professional development in line with the Training Hub scope. The position includes travelling, both national and international.

Salaries at Stockholm University are determined individually. Start date immediately.

Stockholm University and SciLifelab strives to be a workplace free from discrimination and with equal opportunities for all.

Contact 

Further information about the position can be obtained from Head of Training, Associated Professor Jessica Lindvall, jessica.lindvall@scilifelab.se.

Note: If you like the scope of this job but unsure if your profile fits this role – please apply anyway. We are very happy to be contacted for general queries regarding this position, please email traininghub@scilifelab.se.

Union representatives

Ingrid Lander (Saco-S), telephone: +46 708 16 26 64, saco@saco.su.se, Alejandra Pizarro Carrasco (Fackförbundet ST/Lärarförbundet), telephone: +46 8 16 34 89, alejandra@st.su.se, and seko@seko.su.se (SEKO).

Application

Apply for the position at Stockholm University’s recruitment system. It is the responsibility of the applicant to ensure that the application is complete in accordance with the instructions in the job advertisement, and that it is submitted before the deadline.

Only include the cover letter and CV in your application. Bring copies of grades and certificates if you are called to an interview.

The instructions for applicants are available at: How to apply for a position.

You are welcome to apply!

Stockholm University contributes to the development of sustainable democratic society through knowledge, enlightenment and the pursuit of truth.

Closing date: 20/03/2023