Director, Mistra Urban Futures

A future challenge

Mistra Urban Futures is an international centre for sustainable urban development. The purpose of the centre is to contribute towards making a real difference to the environment and to people's lives in the cities of the world. Practitioners and researchers cooperate closely to produce first-class, effective and relevant knowledge.

Located in Gothenburg, Sweden, Mistra Urban Futures was set-up to better understand the challenges and possibilities facing urban areas and to establish a world centre for their sustainable development. It is funded by Mistra the Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and seven founding organizations in the Gothenburg region. The centre is hosted by Chalmers University of Technology. We are now looking for a Director at Mistra Urban Futures.

Scientific leader and director of Mistra Urban Futures
The Director will shape, develop and lead Mistra Urban Futures both locally and globally. You will be expected to make use of various partner organizations – including our interaction hubs in Cape Town, Gothenburg, Kisumu, Manchester and Shanghai. Developing and expanding this network will be a prerequisite to advancing Mistra Urban Futures to the cutting edge of academic insight and practical know-how in its field. 

Providing a unique opportunity to create and use the necessary knowledge for sustainable urban development, this position requires someone who can successfully promote collaboration between an academic environment and relevant stakeholders. If you share our vision, please visit us to find out more at www.mistraurbanfutures.se.

Qualifications
The Director must fulfill the competence criteria below:

• Internationally recognized academic competence, with PhD or similar competence of relevance for the area of sustainable urban development.
• Experience of leading complex processes in knowledge driven organizations
• Excellent leadership skills for the conditions and way of operation characteristic of Mistra Urban Futures
• International network of contacts relevant to Mistra Urban Futures with respect to research, business, public sector and NGOs. 
• Familiarity and/or understanding of different types of knowledge, how these different types can be made accessible and how they can be used for, and integrated in, common knowledge production, i e insight in trans disciplinary knowledge production. 
• Insight into how politically governed organizations work
• Speaks and writes English fluently

We will look for look for a person with the ability to add value to Mistra Urban Futures, which includes the ability and willingness to utilize employee potential, form a culture characterized by openness and creativity and serve as an ambassador for the organization and positive leadership at Chalmers. We think that leadership skills are based on sound and relevant experience and know-how related to the different aspects of leadership, and presuppose a reflective attitude towards one's own leadership.

The position is a full time permanent position at Chalmers, with an affiliation to a relevant department.

Application procedure
The application should be marked with Ref 20140140 and sent electronically via Chalmers webpage. 

Application deadline: May 4, 2014

For questions, please contact:
Professor Karl-Gunnar Olsson, Director of Built Environment Area of Advance,  karl-gunnar.olsson@chalmers.se
Thomas Rosswall, Chairman of the Board of Mistra Urban Future, thomas.rosswall@gmail.com






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