Förste intendent/ Director, SBDI

As the Director of SBDI, you have overall responsibility for the leadership, strategic development, and long-term sustainability of the infrastructure. The position entails executive responsibility for SBDI as a national research infrastructure and for its role in international biodiversity data collaborations.

The role includes overall responsibility for the management of SBDI as a distributed national consortium. This involves ensuring effective collaboration between partner organizations and coordination across technical development, data mobilization, user support, and communication functions. While day-to-day operational tasks are delegated within the organization, you are accountable for overall performance, coherence, and delivery.

As the Director, you lead the SBDI Executive Office and operate on a mandate from the SBDI Steering Committee. You are responsible for translating strategic decisions into coherent execution across the infrastructure and for ensuring that governance, coordination, and reporting function effectively. You report to the SBDI Steering Committee through regular status updates, strategic analyses, and risk reporting, and ensure that SBDI complies with funder requirements and relevant policies and continues to develop in line with its long-term mission.

As the Director, you represent SBDI at a strategic level nationally and internationally. This includes engagement with funding bodies, other research infrastructures, partner institutions, and international networks, such as GBIF and the Living Atlases community. You ensure that the national SBDI agenda is clearly expressed in these contacts.

The position includes overall responsibility for financial stewardship and long-term sustainability. This encompasses oversight of the infrastructure budget, contribution to major funding applications, strategic resource allocation, and long-term financial planning. As the Director, you are also responsible for identifying and managing strategic risks affecting SBDIs long-term viability, including risks related to staffing, funding, external dependencies, and technical sustainability.

While this is a full-time position, there is ample opportunity within the position to carry out your independent research centered on big biodiversity data. Thus, we welcome candidates with a strong research track record. You are also expected to contribute to the museums digitization vision and our concerted effort to move towards open science.

Qualifications:

• Proven experience of executive-level management and operational management of multidisciplinary teams and/or complex organizations (incl. product development/business development effort estimation, prioritization, and delivery follow-up)
• Documented experience in leadership roles within research infrastructures, large scientific initiatives, or distributednational or international organizations
• Experience of strategic financial management, including oversight of budgets and contribution to major funding applications
• PhD or equivalent scientific competence in biodiversity science, ecology, environmental science, biodiversity informatics, or a closely related field
• Documented experience of international collaboration and strategic representation
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to engage with a wide range of stakeholders (e.g., ability to communicate digital strategy and technical priorities to non-technical stakeholders)
• Experience working with emerging data types or large-scale data analytics in biodiversity or environmental research
• Strong proficiency in both Swedish and English, in writing and speech

 Merits:

• Experience with operative leadership/management of digital infrastructure/product development/business development 
• A strong understanding of biodiversity data, research data infrastructures, and open science principles, including FAIR and CARE data principles
• Experience with international biodiversity data infrastructures such as GBIF, Biodiversa+, GEOBON, OBIS, or similar initiatives
• Knowledge of the Swedish and European research and research infrastructure landscape
• Experience leading infrastructures or organizations through transitions from development to long-term operation
• Experience engaging with the private sector on biodiversity and ecosystem issues, including the use of data to support sustainability or nature-positive strategies
• An understanding of data governance, information security, and legal compliance relevant to digital research infrastructures (e.g., GDPR, sensitive species data handling)

You are self-driven, collaborate and build relationships with ease, and create trust in your interactions. In your leadership, you engage others and maintain a strategic, holistic perspective. You work in a structured way and move your processes forward with strong planning and prioritization skills.

Please submit the following to your application

1)   A motivation letter  addressing your interest in the position, why you are a suitable candidate, and how you meet all listed qualifications, merits, and personal competencies (max 3 pages)

2)    A CV (max 2 pages)

3)    A short description of the relevance of your research profile for this job (max 1 page)

4)    5-10 publications relevant for this position

We advance our knowledge of the natural world, inspiring to better care of our planet. Our ambition is that the employees of The Swedish Museum of Natural History shall represent the diversity in Sweden and we welcome every applicant.

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