The University of Oulu is an international scientific community, with approximately 15 000 students and 3 000 employees. The strengths of the University are wide multidisciplinary study and research interests, modern research and study environment and extensive cooperation with international educational and research institutes. For more information, please visit http://www.oulu.fi/english/.

The Faculty of Science at the University of Oulu is announcing an open tenure-track Assistant or Associate Professorship in Mathematics with emphasis on Mathematical Analysis. The position is located at the Research Unit of Mathematical Sciences, which has an internationally strong position at the forefront of research in its focus areas. The research unit is a partner in the Centre of Excellence in Inverse Modelling and Imaging, funded by the Academy of Finland (https://wiki.helsinki.fi/display/inverse/Home).The Unit is committed to high quality undergraduate and graduate teaching.

A person appointed to a tenure track position is employed as an Assistant Professor, or Associate Professor in the tenure track system of the University of Oulu (http://www.oulu.fi/university/node/38379), depending on the merits and qualifications of the applicant. An Assistant or Associate Professor is expected to qualify for the next career level within 1 or 2 periods of at most five years.

The positions will be supplemented with a starting package that enables hiring a post-doc researcher and a doctoral student.

Subject field and description

Mathematics with emphasis on Mathematical Analysis. It is considered as an advantage if the research of the applicant is related to the focus research areas of the Unit in the field of mathematical analysis. These include dynamical systems, fractal geometry, geometric measure theory, random structures and probability. Exceptionally strong applicants in other areas can also be considered, provided they have the capacity to support existing research directions.

Duties

The new Assistant or Associate Professor will be responsible for developing high-quality scientific research that supports and focuses on the research activities in the Unit. He or she is also expected to be competitive in attracting external research funding, to publish in leading scientific journals, to supervise doctoral students, to be an active member of the international scientific community, and to exhibit academic leadership. In addition to this, teaching, supervising bachelor’s and master’s theses, as well as some administrative duties are included in the annual 1,624 working hours. The teaching duties will not exceed 30 % of the working time.

Eligibility

A Ph.D. in the field of Mathematics, or equivalent, and adequate post-doctoral experience are required. To the position of Assistant Professor can be appointed only an applicant, whose doctoral degree was completed less than ten years before the end of the application period.

By Government Decree, Assistant or Associate Professors must be proficient in Finnish. They must also have at least satisfactory spoken and written skills in Swedish. Foreign citizens, non-native Finnish citizens or citizens who have not been educated in Finnish or Swedish may be exempted from this requirement without a separate application.

If the new Assistant or Associate Professor is exempted from the language requirement of the previous paragraph, he or she is nevertheless expected to acquire sufficient proficiency in Finnish within 4 years of appointment in order to be eligible for renewal of the position after the first five-year term.

Grounds of assessment

Special emphasis will be given to research expertise within the subject field, demonstrated by an outstanding international publication record. Pedagogical expertise, including teaching experience, pedagogical training and the skill to create teaching material, is considered as an additional merit.

It is considered an advantage to the candidates to have work experience from research environments other than University of Oulu. Periods of working abroad and other international experience will be regarded as an asset.

The candidates are expected to establish strong independent research directions in a field compatible with or complementary to those of the Research Unit, or which can suitably be adapted to support its current research directions. The long-term development potential as well as the ability to establish and maintain research collaboration and any evidence of attracting external research funding will also be vital.

In addition, the applicant's potential in developing and leading academic activities is important, including knowledge about matters of diversity and equal treatment, with particular focus on gender equality.

Salary

The salary of an Assistant Professor will be based on levels 5 – 6, and that of an Associate Professor will be based on levels 6 – 7, respectively, of the requirement level chart for teaching and research personnel in the salary system of Finnish universities. In addition to the basic salary, the appointee will be paid a salary component based on personal work performance with a maximum of  50 % of the basic salary. The full salary is approximately 3,500 – 4,500 euros per month for an Assistant Professor, and 4,000 – 5,200 euros per month for an Associate Professor.

 

Reviewer Assessment

A recruitment committee will take care of the evaluation process. A minimum of two external reviewers will be consulted with regard to the selection process. Top candidates will be interviewed by the recruitment committee.

The selection criteria for each career level are detailed as follows:

Assistant Professor:

The position of an Assistant Professor is initially a fixed-term position for five years. The position is available for applicants who have finished their doctoral dissertation less than ten years ago and are advancing towards a professional research career. The selection criteria for an Assistant Professor are the following:

• Research potential and merit applicable to the position to date (publications, especially internationally refereed publications; participating in acquiring external funding/funding granted; connections with the international community in the field);
• Experience of working in different institutions including international professional experience;
• Demonstrable development of skills is the prerequisite for a continuation period.

Associate Professor:

The position of an Associate Professor is initially a fixed-term position for five years with potential for extension after an evaluation. The selection criteria for an associate professor are the following:

• Publications on an international level: dissemination, quality of the publication forums, references to the publications;
• Active role in research training;
• Acquisition of external funding;
• Working in more than one research facility during one’s career (in most fields represented at the University of Oulu this signifies working abroad);
• An active role in the international scientific community;
• Acknowledgements and awards.

Application

The application should be written in English and include the following documents: :

1) A motivation / application letter with contact information, stating the career level on which you would like to be evaluated at

2) Brief curriculum vitae, compiled in accordance with the instructions of the Finnish Board on Research Integrity (http://www.tenk.fi/en/template-researchers-curriculum-vitae).

3) List of publications classified according to the guidelines of the Academy of Finland (https://www.aka.fi/en/funding/apply-for-funding/az-index-of-application-guidelines/list-of-publications/).

4) Teaching merits of relevance to the post concerned are requested to be presented in the form of a teaching portfolio, or a comparable document. The portfolio or other document should follow the table of contents presented below.

5) Brief research and teaching action plan (max. two pages) with a special emphasis on how the plan benefits the research in the field.

Applicants are kindly asked to prepare for the situation in which, after the closing of the application period, the Faculty might request them to submit 10 publications of their choice to be sent to the reviewers for assessment. When requested, the publications should be submitted as PDF files.

Applications should be addressed to the Faculty of Science, and submitted, together with the required enclosures, using the electronic application form.

The deadline for applications is 19.4.2020.

The position will be filled as soon as possible or upon agreement with the appointee. A trial period of 6 months is applied in the position.

About Oulu

The City of Oulu is Northern Finland’s largest and oldest city, with a population of over 200,000. Located in the Gulf of Bothnia in the Oulu River delta, the city has good access from anywhere. Oulu is a very safe and family friendly community with one of the highest qualities of life in all of Nordic countries. As  the  world’s  northernmost  tech  hub,  Oulu  has  a  highly educated and innovative workforce and the University has a strong role in the community.

Contact information

Professor Esa Läärä, Research Unit Leader, tel. +358 (0)40 500 9299, email: esa.laara@oulu.fi

Teaching portfolio, table of contents

Teaching skills will be evaluated according to the outline below:

1. Teaching philosophy, teaching strategies and methods
1. Teacher’s self-reflection on his/her teaching style, a personal background idea of teaching; how are these reflected in teaching work?
2. A description of oneself as a teacher and an implementer of educational work
2. Practical experience in teaching and efforts to improve teaching
3. Description of educational material (curricula, handouts, assignments, workbooks)
4. Professional development as a teacher
5. Evaluation from teaching (student evaluations, peer evaluations, awards and assessed test lectures)
6. Future teaching goals and plans

Teacher’s plans for future directions in his/her teaching development, for example in relation to the teaching curriculum of the Degree Programme in Mathematical Sciences.