1. Job description

The EU funded CONTRA Innovative Training Network will hire 15 PhD students, each located and supervised at one of the eight participating major European universities (see below). CONTRA will provide training in computational cancer research and professional software development, for analysis of novel experimental data including but not limited to single-cell genomics data. The training will be eminently methodological, leveraging concepts and algorithms from computer science, statistics and evolutionary biology, and include methodologies from machine learning, image analysis, and phylogenetics. A few positions also contribute to experimental verification of computational predictions. In addition to world-leading universities, CONTRA partners include pharmaceutical, biotech-start up, and software development companies. The PhD training within CONTRA will involve several summer schools and workshops across Europe as well as secondments to other sites outside the supervising university. CONTRA actively promotes diversity in science and encourages applications from students regardless of gender, background, and origin. It will be beneficial for an applicant to start before the project’s kick-off meeting in Italy during July 2018.

2. Participating universities

The Royal institute of Technology (KTH, Coordinator), Stockholm; The University of Cambridge; ETH Zurich; University of Warsaw; University of Vigo; King’s College London and the Francis Crick Institute (KCL/Crick); Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB); University of Barcelona; The Institute of Cancer Research, London.

3. Qualifications

Applicants should have now, or plan to have at the end of this academic year, a MSc with excellent results in a computational area (computational biology, bioinformatics, computer science, mathematics, physics, statistics, engineering etc) from a top-ranking university. Applicants with a mixed background (e.g., biological sciences BSc. and bioinformatics Masters) are also encouraged to apply. An applicant must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the recruiting university for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately before the recruitment date. An applicant shall, at the time of recruitment, have received the degree (typically a MSc) entitling him or her to embark on a doctorate no more than 4 years ago.

4. Application

The application should include the following documents:

• Curriculum vitae with at most 3 pages
• Transcripts from University / University College
• 3 references
• Brief description of why the applicant wishes to become a PhD student within this network
• Ranking of 3 ESR projects based on preferences.

Applications to all positions at all the universities will be submitted through a centralised system handled by KTH. The complete application must be received at KTH no later than the last day of application, midnight CET/CEST (Central European Time/Central European Summer Time). Please log into KTH’s recruitment system in order to apply to this position.

5. PhD Projects

For individual descriptions of the 15 projects, please use the following link:
https://itn-contra.org/esr-projects/