Context And Mission
The Technologies for Biomedical Research Lab (TechBioLab) within the Life Sciences Department of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) brings together specialised teams to enable research activities in the Life Sciences. These teams cover a range of areas, including research data and software, infrastructure for centralized and federated analysis and learning, etc. From a technical perspective, TechBioLab’s activities focus on developing infrastructures that support Life Sciences research, including software components for bioinformatics, research data management– especially in healthcare–and scientific and technical benchmarking of research software in close collaboration with various communities and projects. Special attention is given to technological developments enabling the analysis of sensitive data in federated settings. This approach facilitates the generation of AI models without requiring data to be moved from its original site. Complementing these efforts, the lab also contributes to the development of Trusted Research Environments that enable the use of research data on single sites under specific, configurable usage conditions.
The laboratory coordinates the Spanish National Bioinformatics Institute (INB). The Spanish National Bioinformatics Institute (INB) is the major bioinformatics platform in Spain and the Spanish node of ELIXIR. ELIXIR (European Life Science Infrastructure for Biological Information) is a pan-European organization founded in 2014 which aims to integrate and harmonize European bioinformatics infrastructures. ELIXIR coordinates the participation of more than 22 countries; engages with other strategic European initiatives and projects, ESFRI, Research Data Alliance, EUDat and EGI; promotes specific training activities and workshops on ELIXIR resources, partners with industry, and play a key role in shaping the bioinformatics landscape. Within ELIXIR, the INB is responsible for the bioinformatics infrastructure offered by Spain and, therefore, should guarantee its alignment with the strategic areas put forward by ELIXIR.
Since 2018, the INB has two overarching objectives: deepen the alignment of its activities with ELIXIR, and increase the translational impact of INB actions towards the Spanish National Health System (SNS). For the latter objective, the INB has created and supports TransBioNet (Translational Bioinformatics Network), which aims to structure, bring together and work with bioinformatics groups in healthcare settings with a particular focus on the Health Research Institutes (IIS) recognized by the ISCIII.
The INB coordinates the Data Science programme within the Spanish Infrastructure for Personalized Medicine associated with Science and Technology (IMPaCT in Spanish), which aims to establish an interoperable framework for biomedical data integration and analysis, addressing questions from clinicians through the implementation of computing systems in health environments. This programme will prepare clinical data in Spain for secondary use, including medical imaging, structured and non-structured clinical data and genomics, considering all the legal provisions for each possible use and setting. This programme will involve the liaison with diverse stakeholders, including hospitals, the ISCIII, companies in the biomedical sector, the Spanish Medicines Agency and biomedical researchers, among others. All developments will be aligned with the European initiatives in the area, including those from ELIXIR, 1+Million Genomes, the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health and data-sharing projects such as FAIR4Health, HealthyCloud and TEHDAS. In 2023 the INB, the Spanish Node of ELIXIR, renovated its portfolio of bioinformatics resources, including platforms, databases, individual tools and web-services. This portfolio, known as Service Delivery Plan (SDP), constitutes the scientific-technical contribution of Spain to ELIXIR.
The candidate will join a dynamic Life Sciences department team, working in the highly cooperative, multidisciplinary, distributed context of ELIXIR and INB (Spanish National Bioinformatics Institute/ELIXIR-ES) and related national initiatives, such as TransBioNet.
The candidate will liaise with all stakeholders within and outside the BSC, and contribute to coordinating the technical tasks, in INB, TransBioNet and IMPaCT, including planning dedicated training programmes, communication actions and interactions with industry. Specifically, the successful candidate will join the TechBioLab Community Engagement team to facilitate the smooth integration of current and newly identified resources into the ELIXIR ecosystem, including its platforms and communities. This person will also support the development of training materials by the different INB/ELIXIR-ES nodes, and maintain up-to-date the website with interviews, events and similar actions to promote and ensure the visibility of the different groups. The candidate will also support the technical engagement of the INB/ELIXIR-ES resources with its user communities.
Key Duties
* Organise and participate in technical meetings and follow-up across projects and initiatives where the TechBioLab participates.
* Work towards the visibility of the INB activities at the national level and in the context of ELIXIR platforms, communities, and focus groups.
* Organise local and national knowledge exchange and training events and disseminate others from elsewhere that may interest the local and national bioinformatics communities.
* Communicate scientific and technical contributions from TechBioLab and INB to different stakeholders, from the wider public to policy-makers to researchers.
Requirements
* Education
o MSc degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, Bioinformatics, or a related field
* Essential Knowledge and Professional Experience
o At least 2 years of professional experience with a similar role.
o At least 2 years of professional experience within European projects, both at the application stage (pre-grant) and the execution stage (post-grant).
o Good understanding of the Spanish and European ecosystem of stakeholders in the Life Sciences research community.
o Excellent command of social media to communicate scientific outputs.
o Previous experience in the organisation of research-related events.
o Experience in managing research projects, including technical support roles.
o Familiarity with funding mechanisms, grant writing, and project proposal preparation in national and international research programs.
o Proven ability to work with multidisciplinary teams.
* Additional Knowledge and Professional Experience
o Background in bioinformatics is an advantage.
o Experience participating in research proposals and projects funded by the European Commission’s Framework Programme, the Spanish Plan Estatal, or bilateral contracts with companies.
o Fluency in English and Spanish, written and spoken, is essential.
* Competences
o Excellent verbal, report writing and editing skills essential. Capability to represent the team in international project meetings.
o Ability to understand scientific literature and software documentation.
o Strong personal soft-skills sets: communicative, enthusiastic, highly collaborative, proactive, self-driven.
o Willing to travel occasionally.
o Used to working under pressure and with strict deadlines
o Used to working autonomously.
o Highly organised.
Conditions
* The position will be located at BSC within the Life Sciences Department
* We offer a full-time contract 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: 22 days of holidays + 6 personal days + 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: asap