CECAM is launching a call for appointing a new Director to succeed to Prof. Wanda Andreoni whose term will expire 31 December 2012.

The Director of CECAM is appointed for a period of four years. It will be expected that the successful candidate will be based in Lausanne and fully committed to CECAM.

The Headquarters of CECAM is located at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne (EPFL). Within EPFL, CECAM has the status of a Centre within the School of Basic Sciences, and the CECAM Director (with all personnel of CECAM Headquarters) will be appointed within that School. Once elected by the CECAM Council, the procedure for appointing the CECAM Director as Adjunct Professor at the EPFL will be launched, aiming at his/her simultaneous employment as CECAM Director and as Adjunct Professor at EPFL for the duration of his/her Directorship.

The Director must be able to manage the operations of CECAM (as described in the Convention available on the CECAM website at http://www.cecam.org/governance.html) effectively and efficiently, in concert with colleagues on the Board of Node Directors. He/she must be recognized as an outstanding scientist, able to command intellectual respect not only within his/her own field but also across any field of interest to CECAM, and to speak for CECAM with full credibility and authority throughout the entire realm of the computational sciences in Europe and the world.

The CECAM Director’s specific responsibilities include:

1. ensuring the efficient organization and operation of all CECAM activities, including financial management;
2. periodically drafting or revising the long term scientific strategy for consideration by the Council in consultation with the Scientific Advisory Committee and the Board of Directors;
3. chairing the Board of Directors and representing the Board at Council Meetings;
4. preparing the annual report of accounts for the previous year and the provisional budget for the coming year;
5. preparing the annual report of the scientific activities of CECAM for the previous year;
6. submitting applications in the name of CECAM for external funding;
7. launching calls for proposals and participation in CECAM activities;
8. attending Council meetings in a non-voting capacity;
9. developing, on his/her own initiative, a sustained research programme of international quality;

The Director will be assisted by an administrative staff of 3 full-time equivalents at the Headquarters in EPFL. In addition, it is considered normal for the Director to assemble a personal research group. The EPFL provides the space for the Director to house this group together with the funds sufficient to hire two postdocs in Lausanne.

The Directorship of CECAM is expected to be a prestigious and important position with European computational science and engineering. The job has many distinct but related aspects; the Director must be able to:

• take care of the efficient administration of all activities and tasks of the Headquarters and its staff – especially events such as workshops, Council meetings and so on – and ensure the continuation of the excellent relations between CECAM and EPFL;
• inspire European scientists to propose CECAM activities or projects, in new fields as well as the traditional ones;
• imagine, develop and propose new kinds of activities to support and achieve CECAM’s wider scientific goals;
• coordinate large scale proposals involving several institutions on behalf of the CECAM community;
• engender an open, collegiate and consensual approach within all parts of the CECAM structure, especially within the network of nodes and its Board of Directors.

The Council considers it to be particularly important for the Board of Directors to be a vibrant and efficient group, in which the nodes work closely and productively together to initiate and deliver both traditional and new types of activities in support of CECAM’s objectives. The CECAM Director has a crucial role, as the Board’s chair, in making this happen.

Applications should be submitted before 10 November 2011. Any candidate will send:

1. his/her CV,
2. a one-page statement emphasizing his/her own vision of the management of CECAM in particular with regard to the multinodal structure and the missions of CECAM. He/she should summarise his/her qualifications, based on past experience, to direct the operations of CECAM,

to the President of the CECAM Council, Claude Guet (claude.guet@cea.fr ), with copy to the CECAM Director Assistant, Mrs Joanna Schwab (joanna.schwab@cecam.org). Acknowledgement of receipt will follow within 48 hours.

On 24 November 2011 The CECAM Council will establish a first list of candidates, out of which a short list will later be extracted.

All candidates will be duly informed of the status of their application.