Talk:CII

Job opening for a professor

One (1) position at the rank of Professor or Associate Professor or Assistant Professor or Lecturer in the specialization: “Public Health” - Deadline for the submission of applications 2 December 2011

The applicants must submit both of the following:

(ι) Hard Copy

• A letter in which candidates should state the Department, the rank, the specialization in which they are interested in, as well as the date on which they can undertake responsibilities in case they are elected (2 copies)
• Curriculum vitae - in English and in Greek Language (2 copies)
• A short review of their research interests as well as a brief description of their future research plans – in English and in Geek language (up to 1500 words (2 copies)
• List of publications (2 copies)
• Reprints of their three most representative publications (2 copies)
• Copies of the candidate’s degree certificates (2 copies)
• Contact Details (2 copies)
• Names and contact details of at least three senior academic referees.

Candidates should request confidential letters of reference in English from at least three senior academic referees, which must be sent by the referees themselves directly to the Cyprus University of Technology, Human Resource Office by the deadline for the submission of the applications. The names and addresses of the referees should be submitted together with the application because the University may also request additional confidential information. The University may also request reference letters from independent referees of the choice of members of the Electoral Board, if considered necessary.

(ii) In a CD ROM Disc (CD-R or DVD) as separate PDF (PORTABLE DOCUMENT FILES – saved in Latin characters, must not include symbols and the title of the files should not be long) files for each of the above items (1-7) submitted in hard copy. In addition, Applications, documents as well as reference letters that were submitted for previous announcements will not be taken into consideration and must be resubmitted.

Applications must be submitted in a sealed envelope with a clear reference to the specialization of the position, at the premises of the Cyprus University of Technology, Human Resource Department, Limassol Savings Co-operative Bank Building, 4th Floor, Arch. Kyrianos 31, 3036 Limassol or must be sent via registered post (P.O. Box 50329, CY-3603 Limassol) postmarked no later than Friday, 2 December 2011, 2:00 p.m. which is the deadline for the submission of applications. For further information you may contact Elena Tyllirou by e-mail elena.tyllirou[at]cut.ac.cy or at + 357 25002466.

A letter

Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like to apply for the open position at the rank of Professor in the specialization "Public Health" at CII, Department of Nursery, Faculty of Health Sciences.

I have worked in the field of environmental health for 20 years on several different topics: dioxin toxicology, dioxin epidemiology, dioxin risk assessment, fine particle risk assessment, benefit-risk assessment of food, decision analysis, health impact assessment, climate change mitigation, and transportation. I am a senior researcher and unit leader in the Department of Environmental Health in THL (National Institute for Health and Welfare) in Finland. I am also adjunct professor of toxicology, especially risk assessment in the University of Eastern Finland (UEF). I have given lectures on risk assessment and modelling, and I have organised a 6 ECTS course on decision analysis and risk management.

I have developed, in collaboration, a new method called open assessment. It improves traditional decision analyses or impact assessments by opening up the process of making the assessment to collaboration between experts, decision makers, and stakeholders without hampering scientific scrutiny. I have also developed a web workspace Opasnet for making such assessments online. Several research projects are actively using the website for their research and assessments. I am interested in offering my expertise and these tools for CII.

I have excellent skills in written and spoken English and Finnish. I have good skills in Swedish and moderate skills in French. I do not speak or write Greek.

I have ongoing duties in Finland, and therefore it will not be possible for me to apply for the position full-time. Instead, I am willing to spend 10 - 20 % of my working time in Limassol working for CII. The details are negotiable, but a good solution for me would be to visit CII 2 - 4 times per year so that it covers the working time. I am able to take the position in September 2012, if other conditions are met.

I hope that you will consider me despite my lack of skills in Greek and the part-time arrangement suggested.

Sincerely

Curriculum vitae

Curriculum vitae

Review of research interests

Recent achievements

SCUD project (Scientific untertainties in decision making) has been my main research activity since 2005. It included an academy researcher position for five years to develop a new way of making impact assessments. Scud has collaborated with several projects (Finmerac, Minera [Tekes]; Beneris, Intarese, Heimtsa [EU 6FP]; Urgenche, Plantlibra [EU 7FP]; Claih, Bioher [Academy of Finland]) and research institutes (RIVM, PBL, Delft University of Technology [NL]; Imperial College London, University of Exeter [UK]; University of Stuttgart [DE]; Harvard School of Public Health [US]; Cyprus University of Technology [CY]) in developing and applying these new methods.

The overall aim of the new method is to collect, organise, synthesise, and disseminate scientific information and value judgements for helping societal decision-making in a way where open, unlimited participation can be allowed without hampering scientific scrutiny. The method is called open assessment. In practice, we have developed a web workspace Opasnet (http://en.opasnet.org), which contains a suite of functionalities for e.g. describing complex environmental health problems, developing and running quantitative assessment models, chairing organised discussions, and performing and publishing original research. Opasnet has become a workspace where information can be managed all the way from a research plan to a policy advisory report. A key functionality is to enhance learning by sharing among participants and users. The workspace is planned for different users, including researchers, impact assessors, politicians, stakeholders, journalists, companies, and citizens. More details of the methods can be found online: http://en.opasnet.org/w/Open_assessment

Main scientific results:

• Historically, there is and has been a myriad of different kinds of assessments. In general, there is a recent tendency towards a) increasing engagement between assessment and management as well as stakeholders, b) strive for framing assessments according to specific practical policy needs, c) integration of multiple benefits and risks, and d) explicit incorporation of both scientific facts and value statements in assessment.
• Shared understanding (knowing what is thought in the society) should be an explicit objective of assessments.
• Information structures in assessments can be standardised to improve efficiency and usability. An assessment is a hierarchical set of distinct information objects that each have the same internal structure: 1) a research question, which defines the topic, 2) one or more hypotheses as answers to the question, and 3) rationale with background information used to defend and attack the hypotheses.
• Pragma-dialectic argumentation theory can be successfully used in assessments to organise contributions and maintain scientific integrity.
• Assessments and their potential to improve outcomes can be evaluated by looking at 1) quality of content (informativeness, calibration, coherence), 2) applicability (relevance, availability, usability, acceptability), and 3) efficiency (for one assessment and for several similar assessments).

The Scud project succeeded better than hoped for in the beginning. The open assessment method has been tested successfully in several projects, and the Opasnet workspace has been actively used for making scientific assessments. Both the method and the web workspace are being constantly developed within THL. The awareness about open assessment and Opasnet has steadily increased among environmental health researchers in Europe and among promoters of open society and open data in Finland.

Opasnet has a Finnish and an English version; both have been visited more than 400 000 times. The most viewed pages are about an alternative government plan (15 013 views, see also below), ALTTI research project with an indoor air health questionnaire (12 172 views), a municipal solid waste incinerator plan in Hämeenkyrö (6 454), future plans for scouting in eastern Finland (6 452), a benefit-risk assessment on nuclear energy in Finland (5 323), a university course on decision analysis (3 636). As can be seen, the topics cover much more than just environmental health; this is intentional, as complex problems require flexible tools usable with all kinds of topics.

The practical results developed, implemented or performed can be divided into four broad groups. A few examples are given about each.

a) Methods that are needed to perform assessments online: discussion rules for contributions, value of information calculations, life tables.

b) Tools to facilitate online work: a flexible database for model inputs and results; software R for online model development, sharing, and runs.

c) Assessments on relevant topics: swine flu vaccination strategies, indoor radon and lung cancer, building renovation strategies and moisture-related asthma, sustainability of new bioenergy sources.

d) Policy-relevant discussion papers that are not full assessments but apply the methods of open assessment: a novel tax exemption system for value added tax, open information management of a research institute.

Specific achievements:

• The Government of Finland wants, according to its 4-year plan, to include environmental health impact assessment to all societal planning and decision making. The related implementation project uses open assessment and Opasnet web workspace to achieve the national goal.
• During summer and fall 2011, open assessment and Opasnet were used to develop a wiki government plan as an alternative to the official negotiations by Jyrki Katainen. The alternative plan was for months the #1 website in Google search (now it is the first after the official government plan).
• Opasnet won the World Summit Award Finland competition in 2010. It was about the best e-Content and most innovative ICT applications to make today’s information society more inclusive.

Future plans

THL is actively marketing the products of Scud research and getting new users to Opasnet also outside the current research collaboration. THL is also implementing open assessment in its own research and policy projects. Collaboration with CII would offer an excellent opportunity to utilise expertise and experience developed in THL in an international setting. THL does not have good contacts to Eastern Mediterranean Region, but THL together with CII could combine methodological expertise to regional contacts and projects.

In CII, I would be most interested in three things:

• Teaching MSc students about the topics I know best: open assessment, decision analysis, exposure-reponse and other modelling, and environmental health such as dioxins (CII already has better fine particle experts than I am). In Finland, we have used Opasnet as a university course platform with encouraging results.
• Setting up and performing policy-relevant assessment projects about topics that are relevant for CII and its activities in Eastern Mediterranean Region. My previous and current assessment work should be helpful here. Notably the new THL project about enhancing health impact assessment in all policies is useful, as its experiences can be utilised in CII projects.
• Improving technical and methodological assessment capacity of CII by implementing and teaching functionalities of Opasnet. At some point, this could results in e.g. setting up a new website of Opasnet in arabic.

List of publications

List of publications

Reprints of three most representative publications

See related files.

1. Pohjola MV, Leino O, Kollanus V, Tuomisto JT, Gunnlaugsdóttir H, Holm F, Kalogeras N, Luteijn JM, Magnússon SH, Odekerken G, Tijhuis MJ, Ueland O, White BC, Verhagen H. State of the art in benefit-risk analysis: Environmental health. Food Chem Toxicol. 2011 Jun 12. [Epub ahead of print] [1]
2. Jouni T. Tuomisto, Andrew Wilson, John S. Evans, Marko Tainio. 2008. Uncertainty in mortality response to airborne fine particulate matter: Combining European air pollution experts. Reliability Engineering and System Safety 93: 732-744.
3. Tuomisto, JT; Tainio, M. 2005. An economic way of reducing health, environmental, and other pressures of urban traffic: a decision analysis on trip aggregation. BMC PUBLIC HEALTH 5:123.

Copies of the candidate’s degree certificates

See related files.

Contact Details

See related files.

Names and contact details of at least three senior academic referees

See related files.

See also

• Open faculty position, application deadline 2 Dec, 2011.

Related files

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