The University of Oulu is one of the largest universities in Finland. With about 14 000 students and approximately 3 000 employees it is a vibrant international scientific community. By combining multidisciplinary research and education, high-level infrastructure and wide cooperation with international research and educational institutes, companies and the public sector it has created a significant research and innovation hub of “Science with Arctic Attitude”. More information http://www.oulu.fi/university/.

The University of Oulu invites outstanding candidates to apply for:

A Tenure Track Position in the profiling theme Artificial intelligence for medical decision support systems.

Field and Location

University of Oulu is among the very few universities in Finland which has faculties for both medicine and technology. Medical technology is in a significant role in many active research groups in these faculties. This environment offers plenty of opportunities to specialize in many branches of biomedical engineering. We aim to create a world-class multidisciplinary research-based hub for developing and validating digital technologies  for  data-driven  health  applications,  valorizing  OULU ́s  strong  expertise  in  medicine,  wireless  sensors, medical signal and image analysis, machine learning,  and business combined with outstanding regional co-creation, thus responding to bottlenecks in health care and services through a wider uptake of eHealth solutions, interoperability and cost-effectiveness. In this hub we already cooperate actively with many health technology companies and hospitals.

In the call we are looking for highly talented scientists wishing to carry out world-class methodological research on artificial intelligence and natural language processing to support clinical decisions making. The research field includes development of novel technological solutions for biomedical data of multiple modalities for early detection, diagnosis, remote monitoring, rehabilitation, prevention and prediction of adverse health conditions. Modern machine learning and pattern recognition are applied for increasing accuracy and reliability of data analytics. User-centric data including unstructured text data visualization and summarization for decision support could also be a viable topic in our field. Multiple data modalities are studied such as digital signals and images, structured and unstructured text, and “omics” data and others. We possess large databases from various clinical fields and new ones are collected in many on-going projects. We also have large population level birth cohorts containing follow-up data from thousands of study participants. An opportunity will be offered to conduct research with the data that can be extracted from Oulu University Hospital Archives, e.g. electronic health records and radiology reports written in Finnish language. Other areas of interest include decision support systems for remote monitoring applications, medical visual question answering and natural language processing in medical applications. 

The new position will be integrated in the Faculty of Medicine (http://www.oulu.fi/medicine/) and/or the Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (http://www.oulu.fi/itee/).

Job Responsibilities and Required Qualifications

A person selected to the University of Oulu tenure track system must have a doctoral degree and a track record of outstanding world-class scientific research, to be competitive in attracting external funding, to publish in leading journals and conferences, to teach, supervise and advance both graduate and undergraduate education, to be an active member of the international scientific community, and to exhibit academic leadership. The person is also expected to become an active member of the research community of medical technology at the university.

Based on experience and competence, the successful applicant will be placed at the Assistant Professor or Associate Professor level of the four-level tenure track system of the University of Oulu (http://www.oulu.fi/university/node/38379) and the candidates will be evaluated according to their stated career stage. The positions will be initially appointed for five years, followed by advancement/continuation according to the University of Oulu tenure track guidelines.

Required Qualifications at Assistant Professor and Associate Professor Level of the Tenure Track:

Assistant Professor:

When appointing a person to the position of an assistant professor the applicants are evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Only doctors who have finished their doctoral thesis less than ten years ago can be appointed to the position of an assistant professor;
• The applicant has a PhD in a relevant field and has research potential, (publications, especially internationally refereed publications; participating in acquiring funding / funding granted);
• The applicant is expected to have national and international collaboration record;
• Experience in teaching and supervision of students.

Associate Professor:

When appointing a person to the position of an associate professor the applicants are evaluated based on the following additional criteria:

• Publications on an international level (dissemination, quality of the publication forums, references to the publications);
• Active role in the research training, acquisition of external funding, ideally working in more than one research facility during one’s career (in most fields represented at the University of Oulu this signifies working abroad or in a different research unit, faculty or industry);
• An active role in the international scientific community, acknowledgements and awards.

A six-month trial period will be effective in the beginning of a contract.

Salary

The salary of the appointed researcher will be based on the demand level chart for the teaching and research staff of Finnish Universities (YPJ). In addition to the basic salary of the appropriate tenure track level, supplementary salary will be given for personal achievement and performance, the sum rising to a maximum of 50% of the basic salary level for the post. The salary thus being roughly 3100 - 4350 euros per month for an assistant professor and 4400 - 5800 euros per month for an associate professor. The successful candidate will receive also full benefits provided by the University of Oulu to all its employees.

Additional benefits

The nominated candidate will also be offered full funding for one postdoctoral researcher for 3 years and 1-2 PhD student for 4 years.

Applications

Applications, together with all relevant enclosures, should be submitted using electronic application system by 30th November 2019.

The application should be written in English and the following information needs to be included:

1) Application letter with contact information. The application letter must include information on which tenure track level the applicant is to be evaluated, assistant professor or associate professor.

2) A curriculum vitae following the guidelines of the Finnish Advisory Board on Research Integrity. The guidelines and template are available at

     http://www.tenk.fi/en/content/template-researchers-curriculum-vitae.

3) A complete list of publications, top-10 most important ones clearly marked

4) A brief account of research merits (max 1 page)

5) A brief account of teaching merits or a teaching portfolio (max 2 pages)

6) A complete list of acquisition of research funds

7) A brief research and action plan in Artificial intelligence for medical decision support systems (max 3 pages)

8) Contact details of 2 to 4 persons available for recommendation

Evaluators

The selection procedure will be carried out by an Appointment Committee according to the University of Oulu Tenure Track guidelines (http://www.oulu.fi/university/node/38379).

Contact details

In order to receive the information and announcements concerning the official selection procedures to be followed in order to fill this post, applicants must inform the University of Oulu of their contact details for the whole duration of the selection process, they must specifically provide both their home and work telephone numbers, and their e-mail addresses and postal addresses.

For further information and enquiries about this post, and about the application and selection procedures, please contact:

Professor Tapio Seppänen,
Center for Machine Vision and Signal Analysis,
Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering
P.O. Box 4500, FI-90014 University of Oulu, Finland
Phone: +358-294482897
email: firstname.lastname@oulu.fi

or

Professor of Practice Jarmo Reponen
Research Unit of Medical Imaging, Physics and Technology
Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu, Finland
Mailing address: P.O. Box 5000, FI-90014 University of Oulu
phone: +358- 294486020
email: firstname.lastname@oulu.fi

or

Human Resources Manager Tiina Hurskainen,
Kontinkangas Campus, University of Oulu
Mailing address: P.O. Box 5000, FI-90014 University of Oulu, Finland
phone: +358 40 7040270
email: firstname.lastname@oulu.fi

About the City of Oulu

The City of Oulu (https://www.ouka.fi/oulu/english) is Northern Finland’s largest and oldest city, with a population of over 200,000. Located by the Gulf of Bothnia and 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 Scandinavia. This modern city with a beautiful harbor and market area offers plenty of cultural activities as well as opportunities for exploring the northern nature. Open space and parks can be found all along the Oulu River and throughout the area and they are easily accessed by bike – the favorite mode of transport in Oulu. There is an entire range of outdoor and sports facilities to choose from, not forgetting Finland’s biggest spectator sport, ice hockey. Winter is a season that is highly celebrated and lit bike trails and bridges bring the city alive. 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. Oulu is a marvelous place to live, work and enjoy a vibrant academic community. Welcome to the home of science with Arctic Attitude!

 Updated 31.10.2019