Candidates should hold an MSc degree, or should be in the second year of their MSc concluding studies within 2023. PhD Candidates are expected to be inscribed as PhD students at the University of Crete, as soon as possible upon contract start – note that there are no tuition fees in Greece.

They should also have equivalent training and experience in Computer Science, Bioinformatics, or Biology. Applicants with a degree in Biology will be considered if they are “programming biologists”, e.g., they have written source code in C, C++, PYTHON, R or other scripting languages (ideally available via a github or analogous open source repositories).

Experience in Bioinformatics software development (as evidenced by links to open source codes implemented by the candidate or in case of closed code either via making a preview available or description of coding abilities in the reference letters) Applicants who fail to present previous experience in software development will be excluded.

The working language of the BCG will be English, and candidates’ written and spoken fluency will be assessed at interview.

Expertise in parallel and high performance computing and/or energy-aware computing, expertise in big data analysis and/or application of machine learning techniques to biological problems, expertise in statistics and uncertainty quantification, expertise in algorithm design and/or algorithm engineering, expertise in virus evolution, experience with Biodiversity analysis projects based on molecular sequence data.

Contract Duration:              4 years approximately

Salaries are set relative to a baseline, calibrated to the standard of living of PhD Students at a leading German research institute. All PhD positions will be set up according to the applicable greek national law and according to the arrangement agreed.

Around 2.200 EUR net per month (12 salaries per year)

Application Submission

Interested candidates can submit their applications via http://www.ics.forth.gr/jobs/en/ using the link “Apply for the position” under this announcement. Applications must include (if not the application will be rejected):

Detailed CV including a list of talks & publications and open-source code projects. If no open-source projects have been conducted, please outline why they are not open-source and indicate if they could be made available for inspection upon request. 

Motivation letter

Scanned copies of academic titles;

2 recommendation letters – candidates must ensure that they are sent directly to stamatak@ics.forth.gr by their referees until the application deadline. Failure to do so will result in immediate exclusion.

Contact Information:

For information and questions about the advertised position, the activity of the group or the Institute, please contact Prof Alexandros Stamatakis (stamatak@ics.forth.gr). We strongly encourage candidates to have an informal chat with A. Stamatakis prior to submitting their application.

Selection procedure

Applications will be evaluated by an international evaluation committee composed of five experts in Bioinformatics and computational molecular evolution. The committee includes:

Prof. Alexandros Stamatakis and

Dr. Nick Goldman, European Bioinformatics Institute, UK

Prof. David Posada, University of Vigo, Spain

Dr. Celine Scornavacca, CNRS, France

Prof. Emily McTavish, University of California at Merced, USA

In case candidates are invited for an interview, they will either be invited to participate in person or via teleconference. Beyond scientific excellence, selection criteria will include gender and diversity aspects as well as complementary skills and fit of the candidate to the existing team. Should this first call not identify a sufficient number of suitable candidates a second call might be issued, that is, not all positions will necessarily be filled.

Selection Announcement

The result of the selection will be announced on the website of ICS-FORTH. Candidates have the right to appeal the selection decision, by addressing their written objection to the ICS secretariat within five (5) days since the results announcement on the web. They also have the right to access (a) the files of the candidates as well as (b) the table of candidates’ scores (ranking of candidates results). All the above information related to the selection procedure will be available at the secretariat of ICS-FORTH in line with the Hellenic Data Protection Authority. Access to personal data of co-candidates shall be limited to personal data (and relevant data) and supporting documents which have been the basis of the evaluation of the candidates for the specific post(s). Prior to the announcement of the personal data and/or documents of the co-candidates to the applicant, FORTH will inform the data subjects in an appropriate way.

GDPR Disclaimer

FORTH is compliant with all legal procedures for the processing of personal data as defined by the Regulation EU/2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data.

FORTH processes the personal data and relevant supporting documents that you have submitted to us. Processing of that data is carried out exclusively for the needs and purposes of this specific call. Such data shall not be transmitted to or communicated to any third party unless required by law.

FORTH retains the above data up to the announcement of the final results of the call, unless further process and reservation is required by law or for purposes of exercise, enforcement, prosecution of certain one’s legitimate legal rights’ as defined in the Regulation EU/2016/679 and/or in national law.

We inform you that under the Regulation EU/2016/679 you have the rights to be informed about your personal data, access to rectification and erasure, restrictions of process and objection to as provided by applicable regulation and national laws.

We acknowledge also to you, that you have the right to file a complaint to the national Data Protection Authority. For any further information regarding exercise of your personal data protection rights, you may contact the Data Protection Officer at FORTH at dpo@admin.forth.gr.

You have the right to withdraw your application and consent for the processing of your personal data at any time. We inform you that, in this case, FORTH shall destroy such documents and/or supporting documents submitted and shall delete the related personal data.