Project Manager Human Genomics Data

To enable personalised medicine, we need to be able to share and process sensitive human data such as individual human genomes and link this to health and clinical data. Establishing an infrastructure capable of sharing this data in a secure way across borders is a high priority topic in Europe. The Genomic Data Infrastructure (GDI) project, coordinated by ELIXIR, will deploy such an operational infrastructure in Europe. VIB/ELIXIR Belgium and Sciensano will collaborate to establish this infrastructure in Belgium. The Belgian Genome Biobank project is focussing on the generation of human genome sequences for a healthy reference population, in which ELIXIR Belgium is co-leading the infrastructure component. The combined projects will be driving the concrete deployment to realise an adequate infrastructure to handle sensitive data in a collaborative, privacy-conscious manner across stakeholders in research and health in Belgium.

Within the ELIXIR Belgium team, you will coordinate the Node’s activities on human data across Belgian stakeholders and ensure the alignment with the European developments. You will work closely with research institutions, the public health institute (Sciensano) and university hospitals, as well as with colleagues from the other ELIXIR Nodes throughout Europe, with the aim to establish a fit-for-purpose infrastructure supporting health research. In this dynamic role you will have the chance to actively contribute to the development of a complete ecosystem to share sensitive human data.

As our Project Manager Human Genomics Data, you will:   

• Map the activities on human data sharing initiatives across Belgian stakeholders
• Identify potential synergies, and develop and initiate an action plan for increased collaboration
• Organise user-oriented meetings and knowledge exchange meetings with Belgian stakeholders
• Effectively and proactively communicate outcomes, risks, and ongoing processes to the ELIXIR Belgium team
• Represent ELIXIR Belgium in interactions with internal and external stakeholders
• Ensure alignment with European activities

Required

• Master or PhD degree with a background and experience in life-sciences
• Proven experience of collaborative research and project management skills
• Strong interpersonal skills
• Ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing in English
• Demonstrated ability to meet deadlines and manage priorities to handle a diverse workload
• Ability to lead, organise and independently manage delivery within a multidisciplinary, collaborative team environment
• Positive and enthusiastic personality

Desirable but not required

• Knowledge of the principles of FAIR and Open data
• Hands-on experience with genomics data generated in screening centres  

• An open-ended contract
• Competitive package based on experience and expertise, and benefits
• A challenging and stimulating work environment with opportunities for personal input, personal development and training
• Innovative working environment in the large life-sciences network of ELIXIR infrastructure developers across Europe
• Possibility of homeworking, with balance between working from a remote location and from the office
• The office is at the VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology (Ghent, Belgium). It is placed at the Tech Lane Ghent Science Park, a vibrant ecosystem of international corporate R&D centres.

The ELIXIR consortium (https://www.elixir-europe.org ) is a European research infrastructure that unites life-science research groups. It coordinates, integrates and sustains bioinformatics resources from the different member states. The Belgian ELIXIR Node is hosted at VIB (Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie). The research infrastructure provides platforms and guidance for research data management and reproducible data analysis, and offers domain specific services for Plant & Biodiversity, Human health and COVID-19 research. ELIXIR Belgium is also strongly involved in the infrastructure for human data sharing and provides data related training and workshops.

VIB is an entrepreneurial non-profit research institute, with a clear focus on ground-breaking strategic basic research in life sciences and operates in close partnership with the five universities in Flanders – Ghent University, KU Leuven, University of Antwerp, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Hasselt University. The ELIXIR Belgium core team is located at the VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology (PSB, https://www.psb.ugent.be ), a world-leading plant science institute. More information on the ELIXIR Belgium Node can be found at https://www.elixir-belgium.org .

Motivated candidates are asked to apply online.