UiT The Arctic University of Norway is a multi-campus comprehensive university at the international forefront. Our vision is to be a driving force for developing the High North. The Northern Sami notion eallju, which means eagerness to work, sets the tone for this motive power at UiT. Along with students, staff and the wider community, we aim to utilise our location in Northern Norway and Sápmi, our broad and diverse research and study portfolio and interdisciplinary advantage to shape the future.

Our social mission is to provide research-based education of high quality, perform artistic development and carry out research of the highest international quality standards in the entire range from basic to applied. We will convey knowledge about disciplines and contribute to innovation. Our social mission unites UiT across various studies, research fields and large geographical distances. This demands good cooperation with trade and industry and civil society as well as with international partners. We will strengthen knowledge-based and sustainable development at a regional, national and international level.

Academic freedom and scientific and ethical principles form the basis for all UiT’s activities. Participation, co-determination, transparency and good processes will provide the decision-making basis we need to make wise and far-sighted priorities. Our students and staff will have the opportunity to develop their abilities and potential. Founded on academic integrity, we will be courageous, committed and generous in close contact with disciplines, people and contemporary developments.

We will demonstrate adaptability and seek good and purposeful utilisation of resources, so we are ready to meet the expectations and opportunities of the future. We will strengthen the quality and impact of our disciplines and core tasks through the following three strategic priority areas.

Faculty of Science and Technology

The positions

The Department of Physics and Technology has up to three open permanent positions as Associate Professor and/or Professor. Early career scientists, with a promising CV, as well as experienced candidates are invited to apply, respectively for Associate and full Professor.

The faculty members will join the UiT Machine Learning Group. The group is internationally recognized, with research ranging from foundational machine learning methodology and algorithms to applied AI development. The range of applications is wide, with a particular focus on healthcare. The new faculty members shall further strengthen the scientific excellence and high-profile of the group, notably in the Centre of Research-based Innovation SFI Visual Intelligence, which is headed by the group, and the Centre of Excellence SFF Integreat – The Norwegian Centre for Knowledge-based Machine Learning. 

The workplace is at UiT in Tromsø. You must be able to start in the position in Tromsø within 6 months after receiving the offer.

Your profile and field of work

You have a strong desire to develop the next generation machine learning methodologies. You find motivation by extracting knowledge from ever-increasing and challenging data, such as images, time series, tabular data, or other sources. You understand the importance of gaining insight, creating value, and solve real world applications of value to humankind and towards the UN sustainability goals. You find joy in teaching and you hold high ethical standards of your research, teaching and innovations.

Your interests are in neural networks research, where key research challenges are learning from limited data, interpretability and XAI, uncertainty quantification, and the integration of prior knowledge and context, or in general within self-supervised learning, unsupervised learning, representation learning, generative AI, graph-based learning, information theoretic learning, and/or neural knowledge-based learning. The Machine Learning Group has an internationally recognized expertise in developing theoretical and conceptual aspects of machine learning. This is strengthened by the recent centre of excellence SFF Integreat, where the group plays a major role.

Within the UiT Machine Learning Group and the SFI Visual Intelligence centre, the main applications are within health and medicine. Our research contributes to diagnosis and decision support by extracting patient-specific information from electronic health records and through medical computer vision for important clinical tasks such as cancer characterization. You can help transform healthcare for future needs, with AI as an integral part. Other relevant application areas include marine sciences for abundance estimation and sustainable harvest of the oceans, as well as environmental monitoring. Through machine learning, we can aid the climate, the oceans and Earth. 

As a faculty member in the UiT Machine Learning Group, you will have the chance to make an impact on the world and to help shape the future of society with better machine learning solutions that are trustworthy and ethically sound. You are expected to collaborate with the current members in the group. The UiT Machine Learning Group relies strongly on teamwork and joint supervision of students. If you are applying for the Full Professor position, you are expected to bring your network of national and international collaborations and engage them in new connections with the group members.

Contact

Further information about the position and UiT is available by contacting:

• Head of Machine Learning Group, Associate Professor Benjamin Ricaud; benjamin.ricaud@uit.no
• Director of Visual Intelligence and Co-Director of Integreat, Professor Robert Jenssen: robert.jenssen@uit.no 
• Professor Michael Kampffmeyer: michael.c.kampffmeyer@uit.no
• Associate Prof. Elisabeth Wetzer elisabeth.wetzer@uit.no 
• Associate Prof. Kristoffer Wickstrøm kristoffer.k.wickstrom@uit.no 
• Head of Department of Physics and Technology, Professor Olav Gaute Hellesø: olav.gaute.helleso@uit.no

Your qualifications and the evaluation

You must hold a PhD in machine learning or a related relevant field and you must document experience in executing independent original research. 

You must have a strong background in machine learning methodology research with focus on developing novel methodology in deep learning (neural networks), probabilistic learning, geometric learning, knowledge-driven learning, information theoretic learning, or combinations thereof. Such qualifications must be documented by publications at a high level within machine learning journals and conferences such as IEEE TPAMI, IEEE NNLS, IJCAI, AAAI, ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR, CVPR, ECCV, ICCV, UAI, etc. Competence and experience with relevant applications, particularly in the health domain, will be emphasized, as well as interdisciplinary work. We are looking for a blend of research on generic methodology development and research towards specific applications. 

You must be fluent in oral and written English and should have a good command of Norwegian or a Scandinavian language. Applicants who are not fluent in a Scandinavian language must be willing to learn Norwegian within 3 years and pass the language exam level B2 (“Bergenstesten” or equivalent).

UiT offers relevant Norwegian language courses for new employees.

We will evaluate contributions to cutting edge machine learning methodology, towards applications and inter-disciplinary work. At UiT we put emphasis on the quality, relevance and significance of the research work, in accordance with the principles of The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). The publishing record will be assessed with respect to the career stage of the candidate, and we will emphasize the potential of the candidates more than the seniority. Teaching experience and your teaching philosophy and strategy will also be part of the evaluation. Documented external funding, experience with research leadership and relevant collaboration with industry for innovation activities will be rated positively for the Associate Professor position and will be an important aspect for the Full Professor position.

We will emphasize the applicant’s motivation for the position and personal suitability, including collaboration skills and approach to make a good work environment. UiT wishes to increase the proportion of female researchers in academic positions. In cases where two or more applicants are found to be approximately equally qualified, female applicants will be given priority.

Qualification requirements for the position as Associate Professor:

• Norwegian doctoral degree in subject area concerned or a corresponding foreign doctoral degree recognised as equivalent to a Norwegian doctoral degree, or competence at a corresponding level documented by academic work of the same scope and quality
• Documented pedagogical competence

All applicants for teaching and research positions shall document their pedagogical competence. Those who do not satisfy the requirements may be appointed on a permanent basis on the condition that they satisfy the requirements within two years of appointment.

Qualification requirements for the position as Professor:

• Academic level conforming to established international or national standards for position of Professor in the subject area concerned
• Documented pedagogical competence

In addition you must document:

• Development of the quality of one's own teaching and supervision over time
• Broad supervision experience, preferably at master's/PhD level
• Participation in the development of educational quality in academic communities

To be awarded a professorship, you must document substantially more extensive research of high quality than that required to be awarded a doctorate degree. You must document academic activity at a high level over the previous six years, and that this points forwards towards continued activity at professorial level.

UiT follows national guidelines for professorial promotion within Mathematics, Science and Technology disciplines when evaluating candidates for professorships.

Pedagogical basic competence

All applicants for teaching and research positions shall document their pedagogical competence.

You must have acquired basic competence for teaching and supervision at higher education level. This includes basic skills in planning, conducting, evaluating and developing teaching and guidance.

Documentation requirement

 a) Applicants who have completed education or courses designed to provide teaching competence for teaching at universities and colleges, equivalent to a minimum of 200 hours, must attach diploma and curriculum for the completed course. 

b) Other applicants shall describe, assess and document their competence as a teacher and supervisor. The skills must be documented in the form of a teaching portfolio. 

For professor positions, experience with teaching and supervision in higher education corresponding to three years in a full-time position is required. 

Applicants for professor positions shall also document that the supplementary criteria are satisfied: 

• Description of and reflection over your work involving development of your teaching and supervision. This should be documented with specific examples that demonstrate development over time, as well as a description of and reflection over the process and result 
• Description of experience with supervision at master's and PhD level. In addition to describing the scope of the supervision, you shall also summarize your supervision experience and point to possible development areas 
• Description of and reflection over your own leadership, participation and role in development of the educational quality in the academic community 

If the pedagogical competence can be acquired within two years of appointment, applicants shall not be ranked based on pedagogical competence.

Those who do not satisfy the requirements may be appointed on a permanent basis on the condition that they satisfy the requirements within two years of appointment. 

For information about basic pedagogical competence and teaching portfolio, see here (Only in Norwegian) 

We offer

• Allocation of resources for start-up in the position, including 1-2 doctoral positions (e.g. allocated under the Visual Intelligence program or the Integreat program).
• The possibility to work in a vibrant group at the forefront of machine learning research
• R&D sabbatical conditions that are possibly the best in Norway
• A good working environment
• Good welfare arrangements for employees
• Good arrangements for pension, insurance and loans in the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund

The remuneration for Associate Professor is in accordance with code 1011. A compulsory contribution of 2 % to the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund is deducted. In addition, UiT pays approx. 12 % directly to the Pension Fund on top of the salary.

Employees in permanent positions as professor/associate professor have the right to apply for a paid sabbatical (research and development).

In general, a professor/associate professor spend an equal amount of time on teaching and research and development work, after time spent on other duties has been deducted. As a norm, the time resources spent on administrative duties constitutes 5 % for academic staff in this category of position. The allocation of working hours is flexible and allocated on a case-by-case basis.

More information about moving to Tromsø.

We make the appointment in accordance with the regulations in force concerning State Employees and Civil Servants, and guidelines at UiT. At our website, you will find more information for applicants.

Personal data given in an application or CV is processed in accordance with the Personal Data Act. You may request not to be registered on the public list of applicants, but the University may decide that your name will be made public. You will receive advance notification in the event of such publication.

If you have to relocate to Tromsø then the Faculty of Science and Technology may reimburse your moving costs. Further details regarding this matter will be made available if you receive an offer from us.

Norwegian health policy aims to ensure that everyone, irrespective of their personal finances and where they live, has access to good health and care services of equal standard. As an employee you will become member of the National Insurance Scheme which also include health care services.

Work- and salary conditions 

The successful candidate must be willing to get involved in the ongoing development of their department and the university as a whole.

The allocation of working hours is flexible and allocated on a case-by-case basis. In general, Professor/Associate Professors will spend an equal amount of time on teaching and research and development work. As a norm, the time resources spent on administrative duties constitutes 5 % for academic staff. 

The remuneration for Professor is in accordance with the State salary scale code 1013. The remuneration for Associate Professor is in accordance with the State salary scale code 1011. 

As a state employee, you have one of the best pension schemes availiable. For more information see: spk.no.

Inclusion and diversity

UiT The Arctic University in Norway is working actively to promote equality, gender balance and diversity among employees and students, and to create an inclusive and safe working environment. In the event that two or more applicants are found to be approximately equally qualified, female applicants will be given priority.

We believe that inclusion and diversity is a strength and we want employees with different competencies, professional experience, life experience and perspectives.

If you have a disability, a gap in your CV or immigrant background, we encourage you to tick the box for this in your application.

If there are qualified applicants, we invite least one in each group for an interview. If you get the job, we will adapt the working conditions if you need it.

Apart from selecting the right candidates, we will only use the information for anonymous statistics.

Application

The application must include:

• Letter of application.
• Diplomas.
• CV including information relevant for the position and a full list of publications with bibliographical references.
• Description of your research stating which works you consider most important and a brief description of the other listed works.
• Up to 10 scientific publications. Your doctoral thesis is regarded as one work.
• Brief research plan and vision statement (1 page) for the next 3-5 years, also identifying internal and external collaboration partners. The research plan must contain considerations on how the candidate envisions to contribute to the Machine Learning group and possibly to the Visual Intelligence and/or Integreat research centers. 
• Documentation of external research funding raised, including who had which roles in the projects.
• Three references with contact information.
• Teaching portfolio of minimum three pages, informing about your work with students. Describe and reflect on your own teaching and present contributions to development of teaching. It will typically contain teaching philosophy, documentation of teaching activities demonstrating planning, accomplishments and assessment, evaluations of the teaching, and experiences in developing courses and curricula. Attach certificates, reports, and other relevant documents. 
• Form for teaching qualifications (if you lack a teaching portfolio).

Documentation must be in English or a Scandinavian language. Submit applications electronically through Jobbnorge.

Assessment

The applicants will be assessed by an expert committee. The committee's mandate is to undertake an assessment of the applicants' qualifications on the basis of the written material presented by the applicants, and the detailed description draw up for the position.

The applicants who are assessed as best qualified will be called to an interview. The interview shall among other things, aim to clarify the applicants personal suitability for the position and motivations. A trial lecture may also be held.

General information

The appointment is made in accordance with State regulations and guidelines at UiT. At our website, you will find more information for applicants.

The engagement is to be made in accordance with the acts relating to Control of the Export of Strategic Goods, Services and Technology. Candidates who by assessment of the application and attachment are seen to conflict with the criteria in the latter law will be prohibited from recruitment.

After the appointment you must assume that there may be changes in the area of work.

More information about moving to Norway and working at UiT.

According to the Norwegian Freedom and Information Act (Offentleglova) information about the applicant may be included in the public applicant list, also in cases where the applicant has requested non-disclosure.

In case of discrepancies between the Norwegian and the English version of this description, the Norwegian version takes precedence. 

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