Deputy director of the Earth Sciences Department (R4/RE4)
Barcelona Supercomputing Center
Context And Mission
BSC-CNS, recognised as a top high-performance computing centre in Europe and a large research centre with more than 1,000 employees, is looking for an exceptional candidate to join the Earth Sciences Department as deputy director.
The BSC Earth Sciences Department (BSC-ES) is a pioneering research entity dedicated to advancing environmental modelling, forecasting, and analysis. This is a very dynamic and internationally-recognised department with more than 190 members. The BSC-ES research focuses on weather, climate and air quality modelling and forecasting based on the high-performance computing, big data analysis, machine learning, and transdisciplinary work that brings together natural and social sciences and humanities.
BSC-ES is looking for a deputy director to work with the current director, the ICREA professor Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes, to provide leadership and management to the department, including analysis and implementation of priorities, partnerships, and infrastructure needs.
The candidate will work together with the BSC-ES director and group leaders to build an evolving strategic and technical roadmap and define the department technical goals. He/she will engage with stakeholders across local, national and international governments, other groups at BSC, media, partners, and funding agencies to support the development and impact of the organisation internally and externally.
Key Duties
Strategic planning and alignment: – Cooperate with the BSC-ES director and group leaders to provide leadership and management, including assessment and implementation of priorities, partnerships, and infrastructure needs. – Participate in strategic planning and analysis to support the department projection in time. – Perform risk assessment and crisis management. – Work with funding institutions and industrial partners in identifying their research priorities and how the BSC-ES expertise and interest can be tapped. – Organise departmental activities and information systems such as the department wiki.
Stakeholder management: – Cultivate and maintain relationships with industry partners, funding agencies, the media and public administrations. – Engage with the BSC trustees (Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya, Generalitat, Spanish government) to define the department strategy. – Act as a liaison with other BSC departments to foster collaboration (e.g., financial and technical). – Manage and promote initiatives and synergies of the BSC-ES both internally and externally. – Act as an institutional scientific representative for the BSC-ES in engagements with the members of the Board of Directors and the Scientific
Advisory Board of BSC. Performance monitoring and reporting: – Monitor departmental risks and achievements of KPIs. – Identify and implement innovative project management protocols and practices. – Support strategic planning, financial projections, and budget development.
Requirements
Education
- PhD in climate, ocean, atmospheric sciences, physics, engineering, or a related discipline.
Essential Knowledge and Professional Experience
- A minimum of 5 years of experience in the scientific area as a principal investigator or group/team leader.
- Strong experience in managing resources and securing grants at both national and international levels.
- Demonstrable experience in managing multidisciplinary research teams.
Additional Knowledge and Professional Experience
- Familiarity with environmental modelling and the associated technical matters.
- Solid record of relevant publications in peer-reviewed journals.
- Credible scientific leadership with the ability to build excellent stakeholder relationships and enabling a team of world-class experts to perform to the best of their abilities.
- Excellent record in managing resources and obtaining grants both at national and international levels.
- Fluency in English. Knowledge of Spanish and Catalan language will be valued.
Competences
- Proven initiative and ability of guiding a large, multicultural research department.
- Ability to take initiative, prioritise and work under set deadlines and pressure.
- Strong organisational and budgetary management skills.
- Excellent interpersonal and decision-making skills.
- Capacity to cooperate and build strong relations with a diverse stakeholder/staff base.
Conditions
- The position will be located at BSC within the Earth Sciences Department
- We offer a full-time contract (37.5h/week), a good working environment, a highly stimulating environment with state-of-the-art infrastructure, flexible working hours, extensive training plan, restaurant tickets, private health insurance, support to the relocation procedures
- Duration: Open-ended contract due to technical and scientific activities linked to the project and budget duration
- Holidays: 23 paid vacation days plus 24th and 31st of December per our collective agreement
- Salary: we offer a competitive salary commensurate with the qualifications and experience of the candidate and according to the cost of living in Barcelona
- Starting date: August