We are looking for an Assistant or Associate Professor to strengthen our position in the field of Computer-Aided Drug Design (CADD). This discipline plays an increasingly important role in the process of drug discovery and aims to reduce the costs in both time and resources in the drug discovery process, also facilitating higher success rates in subsequent clinical trials.

Whether your expertise lies in structure- and ligand-based drug design, de novo and fragment-based drug design, molecular dynamics, or Quantum Mechanics/Molecular Mechanics, or you are actively working on incorporating machine learning/AI into your computer-aided drug design approaches, we would be very interested in hearing from you. Expertise in topics such as the design of molecules for medical imaging and photopharmacology, and/or investigating their interactions with specific targets would also be of interest.

We offer you a full-time position and excellent career opportunities in our faculty’s career system Career Paths in Science and Engineering, including the perspective to get a permanent appointment (tenure) in 1-3 years and become Full Professor in approximately 10 years.

As Assistant/Associate Professor with a focus on research you will:

- as an Assistant Professor, set up and develop your own research line and research group in the field described above,
as an Associate Professor, develop a strong research group that contributes to the profile of the research institute, incorporating the research themes described above,
- supervise PhD students
- acquire external funding
- promote the societal relevance of your research
- teach courses within the bachelor and/or master degree programs Pharmacy and Medical Pharmaceutical Sciences, and contribute to the further development of these programmes
- contribute to the organization of the faculty, for example by participating in working groups and committees.

At the stage of Assistant Professor, 60% of your time is for research, 30% for teaching activities and 10% for organizational tasks.

At the stage of Associate Professor 40% of your time is for research, 40% for teaching activities and 20% for organizational tasks.

The University of Groningen is a research university with a global outlook, deeply rooted in Groningen, City of Talent. Groningen is the lively capital of the Northern Netherlands with a high quality of life and affordable living conditions.

Quality has been our top priority for over four hundred years, and with success: the University is currently in or around the top 100 on several influential ranking lists. The Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE) is the largest faculty within the University. We offer first-rate education and research in a wide range of science and engineering disciplines, from classical disciplines such as mathematics, astronomy and mechanical engineering, to interdisciplinary fields such as artificial intelligence, pharmacy and nanoscience. Our community has an open and informal character with students and staff from around the world.

The position we offer will be embedded in the research group Medicinal Chemistry, Photopharmacology and Imaging, which was recently created within GRIP, see also the Szymanski lab website for more information. Although GRIP is positioned within the Faculty of Science and Engineering, it is physically located within the University Medical Centre Groningen (UMCG) of the Faculty of Medical Sciences - hence, in ideal proximity to benefit from collaborations between the two faculties. Pharmaceutical research within GRIP is highly multidisciplinary and bridges the clinical and biomedical sciences on the one hand, and chemistry, mathematics (statistics) and physics on the other. The interaction between the pharmaceutical sciences and these fundamental and clinical sciences offers excellent opportunities for ground-breaking research.

We encourage you to apply if you have:

- a PhD degree in chemical or pharmaceutical sciences or Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence, with a strong background in computer-aided drug design, both as a user and as a developer of new computational approaches, or other related fields
- excellent research qualities, as shown by a publication record in international peer-reviewed journals and proceedings of renowned conferences
- a great affinity with and a good track record in teaching, appropriate for the career stage
- at least two years of postdoctoral experience and preferably research experience outside of the Netherlands
- a relevant international network
- demonstrable communicative and organizational competences
- good command of spoken and written English
- the ambition and the potential to climb the academic career ladder.

At Associate Professor level, you should also have:

- independently supervised PhD students
- received substantial research grants from external sources


And you are:

- a team player who can work well in an international and diverse environment
- able to acquire substantial research grants from external sources
- in possession of, or willing to obtain a University Teaching Qualification (Dutch: BKO)
- able to speak the Dutch language or motivated to learn the language within at most five years
- particularly at the Associate Professor level, you have shown to be an inspiring supervisor who stimulates their group members to get the best out of themselves.

Fixed-term contract: 12 maanden.

The Faculty of Science and Engineering of the University of Groningen was the first on the European mainland to introduce a tenure track career policy, 20 years ago, and with significant success. We have attracted great talents that have contributed strongly to the worldwide leading position of our faculty’s ten research institutes. Our career system has helped our staff members to develop highly successful and rewarding academic careers. The latest version of this system, ‘Career Paths in Science and Engineering’, offers:

- diverse career paths with a focus on research, education or impact
- dynamic career paths, in which staff members can switch focus in the course of their career,
- the promotion to Assistant Professor level 1, in combination with a permanent contract, already after 1 – 3 years
- a perspective for promotion to Associate Professor after 5 years, while the assessment for promotion to Full Professor can take place after another 5 years
- significant freedom for staff members whether and when to apply for promotion.

For more information about Career Paths in Science and Engineering, see: rug.nl/fse/cpse. Please consider the career path with a focus on research for the criteria for tenure and for promotion to more senior positions.

As starting conditions, we offer a salary, depending on qualifications and work experience, from € 4,332 up to a maximum of € 6,737 gross per month (scale 11 or 12 CAO Dutch Universities, depending on your career stage) for a full-time position as Assistant Professor. Additionally, we offer:

- a holiday allowance and an end-of-year bonus of respectively 8% and 8.3% of your yearly salary
- a pension scheme
- maternity and parental leave
- the possibility to work part-time (0,9 fte or 0,8 fte)
- a mentor programme and a broad range of opportunities for personal development
- dual career support for partners of new faculty members moving to Groningen.

Alternatively, if you would be appointed at Associate Professor level, we will offer you a full-time tenured position as Associate Professor in our faculty’s tenure track system Career Paths in Science and Engineering, under the same conditions as stated above, but with a salary, dependent on qualifications and work experience, from € 6,002 up to a maximum of € 8,025 gross per month (scale 13 or 14 CAO Dutch Universities) for a full-time position.

Consider our website for more information about the working conditions at the University of Groningen: https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/work-with-us/