Revision as of 05:35, 25 February 2010

YMAL is the Assessment and Modelling Unit in the Department of Environmental Health in the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL).

Although this page could contain descriptions of the unit in general, it is currently focussed on the question about the profile of the future unit head after the retirement of the current head, Matti Jantunen.

Strategy of YMAL.ppt

Profile of the new YMAL unit head

Scope

What is a good profile and expertise requirement for the new unit head, such that

• the focus of the unit stays on public health, and especially environmental health,
• the main objective of the unit stays on the provision of useful scientific information to societal decision-making,
• the future work of the unit will start from the current expertise and work, but develop as necessary,
• the unit head is capable of successfully leading the unit,
• the unit head is capable of promoting high-level science in the area?

Result

THL is hiring a leader for the Unit of Assessment and Modelling. The objectives of the position are to

• do high-level scientific research and impact assessments on public health and especially environmental health,
• provide useful scientific information about environmental health to societal decision-making,
• develop methods for improving the research and information provision mentioned above,
• successfully lead and manage the unit, including fund-raising.

Some facts about the position:

• The position is permanent and it is located in the Department of Environmental Health, Kuopio, Finland.
• The position will be filled before summer 2010. The work will start in September, 2010.
• The current personnel of the Unit of Assessment and Modelling is 1 research professor, 2 senior researchers, 5 post-docs, 4 PhD students, 1.5 IT managers, and 1 secretary.
• The current personnel of the Department of Environmental Health is ca. 130 people; the other units cover toxicology, environmental epidemiology, environmental microbiology, environmental chemistry, and water.
• The unit funding from the THL budget is in the order of XX €/a, excluding salaries.
• Ca. XX % of the current unit budget comes from external sources (mainly research projects).
• The salary will be XX-YY €/month depending on the qualifications of the employee.

Qualification of the applicants:

• A PhD on a relevant area.
• Research expertise in environment and/or health.
• Proven skills/experience about leadership and management.
• Fluent skills in English, Finnish is preferable but not necessary.

Rationale (Definition)

Please participate in the discussion! We want to ensure that a good person is looked for and found.

Focus area of the new senior researcher

YMAL has currently two senior researcher positions. This situation will continue after the recruitment of a new unit head. What should be the focus area of the new senior researcher? Should he/she focus on open assessment or some more practical application area (e.g. environmental impact assessment required by law, urban planning issues, or other)?

Can open assessment be such a focus area that it would have two senior researchers and a whole unit in THL? Yes. THL should lead the worldwide movement of bringing science to policy. A major revolution will probably happen in a few years related to science-policy interface, or scientific information production for societal decision-making. This is simply because scientific information is currently under-utilised due to poor information management systems. The situation is very similar to encyclopedia market in 2004 when Wikipedia had a few thousand articles. Encyclopedia books are excellent for organising and synthesising information, and you can buy 100000 keyword articles with just a few hundred euros. Five years later, Wikipedia had forced a large fraction of encyclopedia publishers to shut down worldwide, simply because it was easier to use, had better coverage, and was free. Books are excellent, but Wikipedia is simply much better.

The same will probably happen to policy assessments, policy reports, and scientific committees on whatever policy area. An inevitable revolution will happen after the mankind learns to organise information directly for policy use in such a way that 1) it is based on mass collaboration and scientific method; 2) it is freely and very easily available to anyone; 3) it is not controllable by any single interest group; and 4) critical mass of voters know this.

However, the progress is inevitable only after these things have happened, it is not inevitable now. Open assessment could grow into this revolutionary Wikipedia of science-policy interface. But so far, it is not well enough known. Opasnet is not practical enough for hesitant users. We have too little experience on real-life large-scale integrated policy assessments. Most assessors don't even believe those could be done in a web workspace. The connections to real-life policy-making are still much too weak. Openness is not inevitable in policy (unlike in many other areas of life), as protectionist and anti-globalisation ideas are growing strong, mainly due to the economic crisis.

There are many obstacles, which are mostly of practical nature. A critical mass of theoretical understanding already exists for setting up a practical workspace, although there are clearly major theoretical questions as well. It would be very useful to have a senior researcher whose main interest is to do open assessments and facilitate them by removing practical obstacles.

On the other hand, there is not clear enough a picture about the reasons why open assessment has not been adopted quicker. It may simply be lack of examples. In this case, it might be good to recruit a new person who focuses on his/her own specific topic, say, environmental impact assessments, and just applies open assessment in that field. This approach would ensure that a specific important topic is covered within THL/YMTO. What is, then, the new topic that is the most important to cover, as we only have one new position?

It is really difficult for me to name one single topic. There are many important topics that THL/YMTO does not cover, and I don't know on what grounds the choice should be made. On the other hand, if we are successful in the science-policy revolution, the question about who is located in which organisation becomes much less important. The real workmates will be from all over the world, and the organisational structures lose importance.

The least favourable option in my thinking is a situation where the new senior researcher has no connection to open assessment. The situation would bring no synergistic, only additional, value, and it would require extreme talent to outweigh synergistic opportunities lost.

Maybe the best way to look at this is to look for two distinct focus areas for two senior researchers within the broad area of open assessment. We should not bind us too tightly to the traditional methods (e.g. risk assessment, environmental impact assessment, cost-benefit analysis), because they will hopefully come closer to each other and finally merge into a single integrated system to help decision-making. Of course, the methodological background of a new researcher today is one of the existing methods. But more important than the methodological background is the willingness to learn new things and the urge to promote the science-policy revolution.

Key competencies

• team leadership
• active academic research with strong international collaboration network
• capability to obtain and maintain external funding
• teaching and doctoral training of junior researchers
• project management

Education

• Ph.D. in environmental, engineering or health sciences, or in economics or social sciences with significant applications in environmental health;
• preference in applied sciences in comparison to basic sciences.

Research themes of historical relevance

• air quality, exposure assessment; modeling, monitoring
• risk assessment, impact assessment, open assessment
• statistical analysis
• policy evaluation and development

Ministry of Social Affairs -linkages

• THL is a sectoral research organization that maintains a substantial body of scientific expertize that is available for the Ministry for reaching its key objectives both in cases of large scale international accidents (e.g. Chernobyl), national accidents (e.g. Nokia water case), in development of efficient public health and health protection policies (e.g. air pollution) and solving local scale controversies (expert statements related to industrial sites, waste management etc.). Scientific expertize and international networking is a mandatory prerequisite for responding to these expertize needs set by the Ministry. Nonquestionable fluency in spoken, listened, written and read English is essential; French, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, and/or Russian is a significant bonus (each one), but also domestic (after all, it is not English) languages, Finnish/Swedish, are considered asset that are useful for understanding the national policy documents, the media content related to events that require and obtain public attendance, and correspondence between national stakeholders.

Other requirements

• Successful applicant will need to be able to commit her/himself to the job for at least a five-year horizon. Especially the responsibilities related to obtaining and maintaining the external funding and researcher training cannot be successfully assumed for a substantially shorter period.
• Ability as a public performer and skills in giving oral presentations.
• A demonstrated interest for promoting public health.
• Good interpersonal and supervisory skills, as judged by former subordinates and colleagues.

See also

References