EMSA

The European Maritime Safety Agency was established for the purpose of ensuring a high, uniform and effective level of maritime safety, maritime security as well as prevention of and response to pollution by ships within the EU.

The idea of a European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) originated in the late 1990s along with a number of other important European maritime safety initiatives. EMSA was set up as the regulatory agency that would provide a major source of support to the Commission and the Member States in the field of maritime safety and prevention of pollution from ships.

The European Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) No 1406/2002, as amended, provides the legal basis for the establishment of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA).

The Agency provides technical, operational and scientific assistance to the European Commission and Member States in the fields of maritime safety, maritime security, prevention of, and response to, pollution caused by ships as well as response to marine pollution caused by oil and gas installations.

The Agency also contributes to the overall efficiency of maritime traffic and maritime transport and supports European cooperation on coastguard functions.

This unit has two main activities, namely:

• Managing the current requirements and potential developments of the maritime information services provided through the Agency to a range of (institutional) users;
• Managing the sourcing and day-to-day operations of the Earth Observation data contribution from satellites and remotely piloted aircraft systems to the Agency's maritime information outlook.

C.3.1 INSTITUTIONAL SERVICES 

C.3.1 is responsible for the business management of the current range of maritime information services provided to different user communities. The ongoing development of the services is triggered through liaising with stakeholders, collecting and translating their business/data requirements into functional specifications. Users include EFCA, EUNAVFOR-Atalanta, EUNAVFOR-Sophia, Frontex, MAOC-N and the SafeMed and Tracea Cooperation Programmes.

C.3.2 EARTH OBSERVATION SERVICES

C.3.2 is responsible for the general sourcing and day-to-day provision of the extensive portfolio of satellite based earth observation data, as derived from Synthetic Aperture Radar and optical satellites, to support the operational requirements of multiple maritime user communities. This section manages CleanSeaNet, the European oil spill detection and monitoring service, as well as the implementation of Copernicus Maritime Surveillance Services as delegated by the Commission to the Agency.

C.3.3 RPAS SERVICES

C.3.3 is responsible for the general sourcing and day-to-day provision of Remotely Piloted Aircraft System based data, as derived from imagery and streamed video, to support the operational requirements of multiple maritime user communities. This is a new technical domain and will start with support for oil spill detection and monitoring (CleanSeaNet), ship source emission surveillance (SOx detection) as well as vessel detection. RPAS operational support to other services is under development and will be delivered as of 2017.

Reporting to the Head of Unit C.3 and the Frontex SLA programme manager, the Data Quality Officer will:

• Provide ticketing assistance to the operations, development, testing and validation processes for integrated services to Frontex on border surveillance;
• Support the Business and Technical Project Management;
• Support the relations with the users for the efficient use of the service, including providing technical training and Help-Desk assistance, as needed;
• Assist with administrative support to the implementation of the EMSA-Frontex Service Level Agreement relevant to the technical development side;
• Check the daily quality of delivered products and integrated services to Frontex following procedures;
• Support the IT incident and/or quality management for integrated services to Frontex;
• Support reporting to Frontex, including statistics on service data and incident monitoring;
• Support the monitoring and evaluating service delivery performance based on agreed service performance indicators;
• Maintaining relations with Frontex for the efficient use of products and services, including providing support and Help-Desk assistance, as needed.

A. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

A.1 Education and experience:

• A post-secondary education attested by a diploma, or;
• A secondary education attested by a diploma giving access to post-secondary education and appropriate professional experience of three years. The secondary education diploma giving access to post-secondary education may be replaced by a certificate of adequate professional training of not less then three years on condition that there was no similar professional training giving access to higher education at the time it was issued or;
• Successful completion of intermediate education plus two years relevant supplementary specialised training plus five years’ appropriate professional experience.

A.2 Language skills:

B. SELECTION CRITERIA

B.1 Essential:

• At least one year of proven relevant professional experience related to the tasks mentioned in the functions and duties;
• Knowledge of Help-Desk and ticketing mechanisms (e.g. Teamforge), particularly for maritime surveillance services;
• Experience with data validation and quality control;
• Knowledge of maritime surveillance.

B.2 Advantageous:

• Experience with border surveillance systems and graphical user interfaces;
• Experience with validation exercises at sea;
• Knowledge of Linux and Java programming;
• Analytical mindset and ability to follow-up on IT incidents and quality issues in a structured way;

Please note that candidates must give clear examples on their application of how both the essential and advantageous selection criteria have been acquired.

The advantageous criteria will be considered by the Selection Board depending on the number of applicants meeting the essential criteria.

In addition to the requirements above, candidates invited to the interview and test phase may also be assessed against the following supplementary requirements:

B.3 Supplementary:

• Ability to work under pressure and to respond quickly to new demands.
• Good communication skills, both orally and in written, in English and the ability to draft clear and concise reports;
• Good knowledge of Microsoft software, internet, email, etc.
• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.

In order to be eligible the candidate must:

• Be a national of one of the Member States of the European Union or of Iceland or Norway;
• Be entitled to your full rights as a citizen;
• Have fulfilled the obligations imposed on you by the laws concerning military service;
• Meet the character requirements for the duties involved and
• Be physically fit to perform the duties linked to the post.

The Data Quality Officer for Frontex will be appointed by the Executive Director, upon recommendation of the Chairperson of the Selection Committee.

The duration of the contract is three years. Only one further renewal to the contract may be granted. Both are subject to a renewal of the SLA with Frontex which currently expires on 30 April 2019.

If recruited from the reserve list, the successful candidate will be recruited in function group II (FGII). The grade will be determined in accordance with the number of years of professional experience. Please note that recruitment is done in the first step of the grade. The basic monthly salary for the entry grade of Function Group II, (FGII, Grade 4, Step 1) before any deductions or allowances, weighted for Lisbon, at 1 July 2016 is 1,649.34EUR.

In addition to the basic salary, staff members may be entitled to various allowances, such as an expatriation allowance (16% of basic salary), household allowance, dependent child allowance and education allowance. The salary is subject to a Community tax deducted at source and staff members are exempt of national taxation.

Please note that recruitment is done in the first step of the indicated grade.

EMSA offers a comprehensive welfare package including pension scheme, medical, accident and occupational disease insurance coverage, unemployment and invalidity allowance. Further information regarding rights and conditions of employment can be found in the following document.

The place of employment is Lisbon, Portugal.

Candidates are advised that if they are offered a post, and accept, they must undergo a compulsory medical examination to establish that they meet the standard of physical fitness necessary to perform the duties involved.

Candidates should ensure that they clearly indicate how they meet the selection criteria in their application and motivation letter.

Candidates must submit their application electronically solely via the EMSA website within the deadline. Applications by any other means (hard copy or ordinary e-mail) or submitted after the deadline will not be accepted.

All candidates will receive an acknowledgement of receipt for their application.

EMSA is an equal opportunities employer and encourages applications from all candidates who fulfil the eligibility and selection criteria without any distinction whatsoever on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age, marital status or other family situation or sexual orientation.

You may apply in any of the official languages of the European Union, but it would be helpful to apply in English in order to facilitate the selection process.

For each selection process a Selection Committee is nominated. The selection is carried out in two phases:

1. In the first phase all eligible applications will be evaluated by the Selection Committee and scored against the selection criteria. Please note that non-compliance with at least one of the essential selection criteria will result in the exclusion of the candidate from the selection process. Advantageous criteria constitute additional assets and will not result in exclusion, if not fulfilled. The advantageous criteria will be considered by the Selection Committee depending on the number of applicants meeting the essential selection criteria.

On this basis, the Selection Committee will invite to the interview and to the test phase the best qualified candidates (maximum of 15), on condition that they have achieved at least 60% of the highest possible score during the evaluation of applications. Should the case arise that there are various candidates scoring the same number of points in the 15th ranking, the number of candidates to be invited will be increased accordingly to accommodate this. 

2. In the second phase, the selected candidates will be invited to pass one or several written tests related to the job profile and to take part in a selection interview.

During this recruitment phase, the selected candidates will be evaluated by the Selection Committee. After the interviews and tests, the Selection Committee will draw up a list of the most suitable candidates to be proposed to the Appointing Authority. Only candidates receiving at least 70% of the maximum points at interview and at the test phase will be included in the list of the most suitable candidates. The Appointing Authority will select the successful candidate and decide whether to also adopt a reserve list. The successful candidates will be informed accordingly.

Candidates are strictly forbidden to make any contact with the members of the selection committee, either directly or indirectly. Any infringement of this rule will lead to disqualification from the selection procedure.

All candidates will receive an information letter of the outcome of their application.

Please note that a binding commitment can only be made after verification of all conditions and will take the form of a contract signed by the Executive Director.

The reserve list will remain valid for a period of 1 year following its establishment. Therefore candidates whose name will be put on a reserve list could be offered a contract during this period of time. Please note however that inclusion in the reserve list does not guarantee recruitment.

Please note that the selection process may take several months to be completed and that no information will be released during this period. Once a selection process has been completed, its status will be displayed in the e-recruitment.

Please note that once you have created your EMSA profile, any correspondence regarding your application must be sent or received via your EMSA profile.

For any prior enquiry, please refer to the FAQ (Frequently asked questions) section, or send an e-mail to recruitment@emsa.europa.eu

Requests for information and appeal:

An applicant who would like further information, or considers that he/she has grounds for complaint concerning a particular decision may, at any point in the selection procedure, request further information from the Chairperson of the Selection Committee.

For information on how to lodge a complaint and/or an appeal procedure, please consult the ‘General Information for Recruitment’ overview on our website for more information:

http://www.emsa.europa.eu/recruitment-info.html