University of Helsinki

More international researchers to the University of Helsinki

One of the major challenges for Finnish science is to attract international researchers to our universities at all levels. We need students, PhD candidates, postdoctoral researchers, young principal investigators and senior scientists to renew science with novel research themes and ideas. The graduate schools are doing pretty well, as in many of them one-third of the PhD candidates are from abroad. But still too few postdoctoral researchers, not to mention established scientists, are aware of the opportun-ities the University of Helsinki can offer. We are a founding member of the League of European Research Universities (LERU), the 20 partners of which have been selected according to the high quality of their research. The international research assessment exercise that we underwent in 2005 demonstrated that over a quarter of our 75 departments rank among the best in Europe. Our four modern campuses host tens of national Centres of Excellence and house state-of-the-art research infrastructure.

Two years ago the University of Helsinki established 36 postdoctoral researcher positions with three-year salaries including full social security.

The aim was to attract talented, recently graduated doctoral degree holders from foreign and Finnish universities to mature into independent scientists in the University of Helsinki, and to preferably stay with us. The three annual calls have each attracted over 200 applications, one-third of them from abroad. In the two first rounds more than one-third of the positions were allocated to international researchers, and half of all posts to women. The third call has recently closed, and the evaluation of the applications is starting.

The quality of the best applicants and of their research proposals has been very high. The selection is carried out by the Scientific Council of the university. The Council is assisted by assessments performed by principal investigators who are at an early stage of their career and work in our university. The voluntary assessment task has afforded them an opportunity to train themselves in research evaluation functions, and they have done an excellent job.

New PhDs all over the world please read the article in the March 2006 issue of The Scientist on the best places in the world for postdocs to work. The University of Helsinki is ranked number 13 on the list of the top 35 universities and research institutions outside of North America.

Marja Makarow
Vice-Rector for Research and Researcher Training

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